Page 4218 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 29 November 1994
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under Mr Humphries, which we must all remember. Despite the attacks on the former Health Minister, Wayne Berry, he was the Health Minister who turned Health around. Terry Connolly is now continuing the improvements. Every business person knows that in the end what is important is the bottom line figure; what was the total revenue and expenditure; and what was the profit. On the basis of these figures, Health has started to turn the corner, out of the red.
However, the Opposition Leader wants only bad news for ACT Health and will now switch to using the figure which includes "technical adjustments". Even if technical adjustments are included, there is only a 2 per cent variation. Most doctors would be satisfied to be working with 98 per cent confidence levels. At 100 per cent, people would be running around Canberra calling them God. We all know that Mrs Carnell takes much glee in running around Canberra promising to introduce casemix funding and cut the health budget by $32m, but her promises will not treat one more patient. Waiting lists will probably grow, because costly medical procedures will be avoided by hospitals. If procedures cannot be done as cheaply as the schedule for items provides, then hospitals will defer costly procedures. The ACT public will be worse off under Mrs Carnell's casemix funding model.
Finally, Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the committee staff for the excellent work that they did in drawing together in a coherent report the views of the committee members. There were lots of late night sittings and lots of times when, I am sure, they wondered whether it was going to come to an end. But they sat there and listened and kept writing. They did a wonderful job, as did the members of the committee. I appreciate all that they did - Mr Berry, Mr Stefaniak, Mr Kaine and, of course, the chairperson, Ms Helen Szuty, who, as I said before, did an excellent job as chairperson.
MR STEFANIAK (5.00): Like other members, I would, firstly, like to thank the other members of the committee and especially the hardworking committee staff led by Bill Symington. They were most efficient in putting this report together. As Mr Kaine indicated, there are a number of problems which still need rectifying in terms of the basic process. Points that have been raised over the last five years still have not been taken up by agencies, and that is certainly something which should be of great concern to the Government and to this Assembly. Mr Kaine mentioned briefly that there is no breakdown to subprogram level. There are a number of instances, and one which springs to mind is some savings in the health area which were budgeted for. In saying that, I do not agree with Mrs Grassby's recent scenario that Health has turned the corner. I suggest, Ellnor, that you check your figures again, because I think you will find that there is still a blow-out there.
There was an indication of one area where some savings were attempted in Health. I think it was about $2.3m. We asked for details of those savings to be given. Details were provided, to a limited extent only, in that there was $900,000 saved in one area and $600,000 in another. The officials who came to the committee were unable to say how those savings had been achieved. Surely, that would be fairly basic to advise a committee which is interested in how the budget is performing, where savings were made, and how. When they cannot provide those details, that is certainly something that the department and the Minister need to look at to ensure that it does not occur again.
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