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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 6 Hansard (21 May) . . Page.. 1558 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I think the process has actually been much more open than previous processes. Whether or not we used those previous processes and we applied the same scrutiny to those previous processes, which we could do, I think they could have been as open. However, we had not done that. Through this appropriation process we did have a much more open process. For that, I think the Chief Minister and the Government have probably taken quite a lot of flak. There was a sense in which the Opposition argued that it was just a publicity stunt. Indeed, if that were the case to start off with, it certainly backfired significantly. However, Mr Speaker, I have no problem in supporting this approach by the Government. I do not see anything innately wrong with the approach. I think it has been a more open process. We have recognised that this budget blow-out has occurred. It ought not to have occurred; but at least it has been adequately scrutinised.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.17), in reply: Mr Speaker, I am fascinated by those opposite and their comments that somehow this process was less than adequate and that there was less than adequate information made available. In my opening speech in the Estimates Committee I ran through the whole of the health budget and explained line by line where we had overrun our projections, by how much we had overrun the projections, and why we had overrun those projections. Never before has this Assembly had that sort of information prior to the end of the financial year.

I was very surprised, though, Mr Speaker, as I think Mr Moore was, that the Estimates Committee did not really choose to ask too many questions about those issues. The issue really involved here was an overrun in the health budget - the fact that we are going to spend in the vicinity of $14.2m more than the budget appropriated for Health. On the basis that we are going to spend approximately $14.2m more than was appropriated for Health, we believed strongly that it was appropriate to bring an appropriation Bill back to this house to appropriate the amount of money that we were really going to spend on Health.

The approach that we took was open, not only in the Estimates Committee, Mr Speaker, but all the way through the process. In fact, this Government has given to the Assembly not only the usual Treasurer's monthly statements that have indicated the ongoing problem in the health budget but also the Woden Valley Hospital monthly reports - something that was simply never available before, Mr Speaker. In fact, although those monthly reports were produced, the only way that the Opposition - which was us at the time - could ever get those reports was if they happened to leak from Woden Valley Hospital, because the government of the day refused to make them available.

So, right from the beginning of the year, it was obvious to everybody in the Assembly and to the community that there was a problem in the health budget. That was the reason why we went down the path of the Booz Allen relook at expenditure all the way through the health system, not just at the hospital but also in the corporate area and at Calvary Hospital. As I said, Mr Speaker, we then made it absolutely obvious to the Estimates Committee and to all those in the Assembly exactly where we had overspent and why we had overspent.

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