Page 1791 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES: This is 1991. I do not think it was he at that time. The person was not named in the report, so it might have been Dr McNicol; you never know. I notice that in February 1991, when the hospital was described as a Third World hospital, there was no indication of support from the Labor Opposition then to defend the hospital against that charge. The Liberals were left to defend that charge entirely by themselves. So, Mr Deputy Speaker, I have to say that there is a little bit of inconsistency here. If Mr Connolly expects some bipartisan support he should be offering it when he has the opportunity; but, of course, he did not then, and he is not now.
MR DE DOMENICO (4.24): Like Mrs Carnell, Mr Humphries and Mr Connolly, I agree that now that we have had some change in the administration of the health portfolio in this place we may be in a better position to work in a bipartisan way. From what I have heard Mrs Carnell, Mr Connolly and Mr Humphries say, it seems that the bottom line has been that the stewardship of the health portfolio has prevented everybody from working in a bipartisan way.
Mr Connolly mentioned casemix. He said that it is not the panacea for everything that is going on in terms of what is to be the saving grace of the health system. We have to look closely at casemix because, notwithstanding that it does not have 100 per cent support from everybody, the system whereby hospitals in this situation are paid for what they actually do, as in the Victorian situation - in other words, they are given financial incentives - seems to be working very well in Victoria. There is no denying that. Mrs Tehan has something right. It seems to be working very well in Victoria. Mr Connolly talked about the Victorian scenario, but we need to realise that in Victoria private and public facilities are used for the community as a whole. In Victoria some private hospitals also have emergency facilities, some also have obstetric facilities, and some also have intensive care facilities. So we are looking at a situation where pound for pound, or, in this case, dollar for dollar, people in Victoria are accorded a greater mixture of health facilities in terms of public and private, and that seems to be working in terms of what it is costing per head of population and per facility being provided. It was also interesting to hear Mr Connolly say that every government would like to spend more on providing the facilities that are needed by the community. Perhaps one way the position of not spending more but being able to provide extra facilities for the same money would come about is through looking very closely at things like casemix and the provision of more private facilities for the use of the community.
That leads me to another point. Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries - all of the Opposition, in fact - have supported Mr Connolly in his decision to approve additional private beds in the ACT. That is a good thing. But if that is as far as it goes, Minister, we have been treated to a typical media exercise, and nothing else. I am sure that that is not as far as it is going to go. Mr Connolly must entertain hopes for a much closer partnership between the private and public health sectors in the ACT if he is to have any chance of succeeding. It is a refreshing thing that Mr Connolly is doing. He stood up here and said that he is cooperating with his colleague Mr Lamont, who is now in charge of industrial relations. He said that we should watch this space and see what happens. That is good news.
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