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Booz Allen - to do what? To tell us, as Mrs Carnell says, what we already know; to give us a crude hit list of jobs to go, and, presumably, in the next $700,000 phase, to embark upon actually delivering those massive job cuts. Booz Allen, it should be noted, has in other jurisdictions, particularly in the United States, been subject to some very adverse criticism by county officials for its charging practices. In Los Angeles, the city authorities were very critical of the way they were charged for a major piece of consultancy in relation to some transit issues. I would suggest that one of the things the Auditor-General may care to do is to look across the board, but in particular here, at whether the ACT taxpayer has got value for money in $300,000 for this simplistic and facile report and whether it will continue to get value for money in $700,000 additional public expenditure for more of the same.

Perhaps I have been too harsh, because there is one other recommendation that Booz Allen makes, and that is better coordination between Woden and Calvary hospitals. Again, that is a statement of the obvious, and something that one hardly needed to spend $300,000 to obtain. Its recommendation that records systems between the two hospitals be coordinated is one the Opposition would endorse. Indeed, records management at Woden, which was itself fairly chaotic from the Canberra hospital-Woden hospital merger, was a very high priority for the Labor Government. Mr Berry some years ago allocated a substantial sum of money to build into the hospital redevelopment project an absolutely state-of-the-art electronic records management system. It is something this community should be rightly proud of. It is a very good system. Certainly all the information I had was that it was a very good system - I would assume that Mrs Carnell agrees with that - and it is the system that obviously Calvary should be integrated into. The priority was to get it up in the public hospital first and then extend it. We would agree that that is a sensible thing to do. I would seriously question whether we got value in spending $300,000 to tell us such an obvious statement.

The report also suggests that there are areas where Woden and Calvary could further and better integrate services to achieve savings. One of its particular recommendations is that where Calvary outsources a number of services, in particular maintenance and repair-type services, it could work with Woden hospital and use the maintenance teams there. That is a sensible suggestion, but one that seems to be somewhat at odds with the report's recommendations that those very services at Woden hospital be poleaxed, with massive reductions in the number of people allocated to those repair and maintenance sections. I have had some very serious issues raised with me by unions representing those areas, who tell me that it is just simplistic to suggest that you can dramatically reduce the numbers of staff in those maintenance areas.

Mrs Carnell: Fifty-six tradespeople.

MR CONNOLLY: There are not 56 tradespeople, on the best information I have, and I will take you through them position by position, person by person, and name by name in the Estimates Committee. You will find that there is a substantial difference. Again, this shows the simplicity and the facile nature of the Booz Allen recommendation. For example, there are three positions there - they are tradespersons positions because they are certainly skilled positions - that relate to boiler attendants; but it is necessary to have a boiler attendant attending a boiler while the boiler is boiling. If you do not,

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