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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2335 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

The Assembly then repealed the Liberals' legislation which set up the board, and we went back to a system under which the Minister was held accountable for the impact of government policies in health. Mrs Carnell will not like that. She is trying to put in place a couple of layers of administration, at extra cost to the community and loss to the health system, to try to shield herself from the impacts of the health system. That will not work. Why do it? Is it because Mrs Carnell wants to lead a grand system so that she can tell her mates around the place that in the ACT we have a Health and Community Care Service and a grand board of health which she set up? Will she tell them that it is for only one hospital? What a joke! We are putting in place two extra layers of administration - with all the support which will be required for those two extra layers - all for just one public hospital. I cannot believe that you would have the audacity to try to impose on the community that extra cost and, given the history of the Australian Capital Territory, expect them to accept that it will work or that it is necessary, particularly when you bear in mind some of things that have been happening at the hospital. Do you think the board of health will make any difference to whether dogs are treated in the hospital system? Of course it will not. It will not make one bit of difference at all. This is the stuff that brings ridicule to the system of government here in the ACT - people trying to set up these grand systems which died a long time ago.

Mrs Carnell was appointed to the board set up by Mr Humphries. That was the board which presided over the first big budget blow-out. You held the belt for a while, Mr Humphries. I regret to inform you that Mrs Carnell now has it. She took it from you. She has the biggest blow-out. I do not know that the board helped you out too much. This board will be driven by the amount of money which is provided to boards by government. It is a political decision whether to provide resources to hospitals and health systems. What Mrs Carnell expects to do, as I see it, is blame the board for what does not happen as a result when she short-changes them in her health budget.

I get back to the cost issue. Boards have direct and indirect costs. The direct costs are sitting fees paid to board members. What has been suggested in relation to them, I think, is rather puny for the responsibilities that these people would be required to take.

Mrs Carnell: You did not pay me anything when I was on the board.

MR BERRY: I did not realise that you had not been paid, but you got what you were worth. Mr Speaker, I have already mentioned many of the indirect costs. They include the preparation of board papers, briefings and submissions, payment of board staff and those sorts of things. All these costs are costs to the health system and they will all result in reduced dollars being available at the work face. That is an extremely important point to consider when one looks at these extra layers of expensive bureaucracy which are going to be put in place.

I want to deal for a moment with the plan to change the name of the hospital. In the normal course of events, if somebody wants to change the name of their pet dog from Fido to something or other else - - -

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