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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2995 ..

MR MOORE (8.40): I rise to offer enthusiastic support for this legislation, as I did when Mr Berry introduced the original legislation. I think Mr Berry picked up a very good point about the need for greater funding for this area. Chief Minister, I hope you will explain why it is that you have cut money from the Health Complaints Commissioner, now to be the Community and Health Services Complaints Commissioner. I remember that when Mr Berry introduced it he assured us that there would be adequate funding for the Health Complaints Commissioner to do his job and I think that raising the issue now is very important. There is no doubt that adequate funding will be required for this sort of task to be completed in the best possible way. It is an issue that I also will be keeping an eye on. Just as I congratulated the then Minister, Wayne Berry, for introducing a Health Complaints Commissioner and was enthusiastic in my support, similarly I am enthusiastic in my support for expanding the role of the Health Complaints Commissioner to include community and health services.

MS TUCKER (8.41): I also am very happy to support this legislation. It is obviously something that was brought to the attention of the Government through the Social Policy Committee's inquiry into the Commonwealth-Territory Disability Agreement, and also, no doubt, from other areas. We on the committee did recommend that the powers of the Commissioner for Health Complaints be broadened in relation to services for people with a disability. We also mentioned the resourcing issue. Obviously, it is very important, if we are going to have an effective complaints system like the office of the Health Complaints Commissioner, that he - he at the moment - or she is adequately resourced. With that slight caution, I welcome this Bill and I hope to see it adequately resourced.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (8.42), in reply: Madam Deputy Speaker, to start with, I will respond to Mr Moore's comments. Mr Moore, no, we have not reduced funding to the Health Complaints Commissioner. In fact, we have increased funding. You would not have known it from listening to Mr Berry's speech, but in this year's budget there was an extra $50,000 in new resources for the Health Complaints Commissioner to handle the new tasks. As Ms Tucker would be aware, from time to time we make extra administrative staff available for the Health Complaints Unit when they have particularly time-consuming inquiries, like the disability inquiry when an extra administrative staff person was seconded. We cannot, under the legislation, put in extra investigative staff because they are very much part of the unit. Contrary to what Mr Berry said, we put extra money in. When Mr Berry set it up he had, I think, the commissioner in an office all by himself for a while. He was horribly underresourced, but since then things have improved.

I am very pleased to voice the commitment of this side of the house, the Government, to the Health Complaints Unit. It is a good opportunity to be able to say to Ken Patterson and his staff just what a great job they are doing. It is a very difficult area. It is one of those areas where probably no-one is ever going to be happy. I am not sure that when people are in the process of complaints they are ever 100 per cent pleased with the outcome, because outcomes are almost always mediated. But I think they do a very good job, and I agree totally that the issue of resourcing is important. That is the reason why we put more money in this year, and it is the reason why we will continue to keep an eye on the area and respond to the commissioner's requests for extra staffing from time to time. I have some amendments to move, but we will do that shortly.

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