Page 3685 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
They were not promised by 1 July. The Minister said, "I hope that we will have them by 1 July".
The second document that I would like to quote from is the Hansard of 20 September 1994. In answer to a question, Mr Connolly's response was:
Madam Speaker, I did say that we wanted to get those beds reopened, and we provided the funding to have them reopened by 1 July. That was to get us to 600. We are currently at 584, I am told.
This is very clearly a matter that is in progress, as it was at 20 September this year.
I will not go through the calculations on paediatric bed numbers and the total number of beds, Madam Speaker, because my colleague Mr Moore is going to do that when he rises to speak in this debate. I am sure that he will address both of those issues, based on the calculations that Mrs Carnell has presented to the Assembly and on the calculations that Mr Fraser, the chief executive of the Department of Health, has presented to this Assembly.
I would like to make some comments about the information that has been presented, and the way it has been presented, to this Assembly. Mr Connolly, in response to the numerous questions that members of the Opposition have asked about bed numbers, has offered to have his figures checked at every opportunity that he has been given the opportunity to comment on that information. He has been very sincere, I believe, in the comments that he has made. In fact, both Mr Moore and I have consulted officers from the Department of Health to run through the various figures presented to us to assure us of the veracity of our remarks.
Mr Connolly also referred to the role of the Estimates Committee in looking at matters, particularly matters such as these, certainly in terms of the methodology that is used to count bed numbers. He is right, to a degree. That is an appropriate role for an estimates committee to have. I would add that it is certainly the role of the Opposition to put forward censure motions to this Assembly where they believe that the evidence supports the putting of those motions to the Assembly. Mr Connolly also remarked on the need to compare like with like, and that has certainly been one of the major substantive issues of this current debate. As Mr De Domenico has said, it can get very confusing for members of this Assembly when different beds in different places are counted in different ways. I did suggest to Mr Connolly, when I had a word to him earlier this afternoon, that perhaps it would be a good idea if we had a full explanation of how beds are counted, both in the ACT and across other jurisdictions, and we had a greater understanding of the Medicare agreement and the negotiations that the States have with the Commonwealth in terms of arguing their case for funding to be granted to them from the Commonwealth.
Madam Speaker, as I indicated to the Assembly, I will not be supporting this censure motion. I invite my colleague Mr Moore to address the matter of the counting of the numbers of beds.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .