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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 13 Hansard (3 December) . . Page.. 4431 ..

MRS CARNELL: At the end of September we had reduced waiting lists by 25.6 per cent. I have just been informed, again by my extraordinarily efficient staff, that that particular document, the newspaper leaflet, was based upon the annual report, Mr Berry, which is the reason that it stopped at the end of the financial year. It is actually a fairly normal thing to do when you base something on the annual report. The annual report always goes to the end of June; that is actually the way it always goes.

MR SPEAKER: Annual reports do have to stop somewhere, do they not?

MRS CARNELL: They do. The annual report stops at the end of June and, yes, the annual report - - -

Mr Berry: But the dishonesty goes all the year.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MRS CARNELL: Yes, the annual reports come out in September, because that is the requirement in the legislation. I understand that is when they have to come out. I think it is quite appropriate that the hospital should use the figures out of their annual report for these things. But, of course, if they had used the last published data for waiting lists, which I think is to the end of September, they would have got a figure that was even lower than the one they printed. Maybe, what they really should have done was printed the more up-to-date figures. In 1995 additional surgery was carried out at Canberra Hospital and at Calvary Public Hospital.

Mr Berry: There were 800 fewer at Canberra Hospital at the end of the year.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MRS CARNELL: In fact, 303 additional patients were treated at the Canberra Hospital and 407 at - - -

Mr Berry: There were 800 fewer.

MR SPEAKER: I warn you, Mr Berry.

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. In 1996-97, an additional 765 cost-weighted separations were achieved in the area of elective surgery. This Government has concentrated on waiting lists, has certainly put extra dollars into waiting lists over the last couple of years and has managed now, at the end of September, to reduce waiting lists by 25.6 per cent. That means that at the end of this last financial year we had managed to bring in a health budget with a small surplus and reduce waiting lists. I have to say that we are the only government in Australia that has managed to do that; and, certainly, when you compare that with Mr Berry's more than doubling of waiting lists and four out of four health budget blow-outs, I am amazed that he can even bring himself to ask that question.

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