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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (18 February) . . Page.. 322 ..

MR RUGENDYKE: Mr Speaker, I ask a supplementary question. Minister, when the hospital is in this bypass mode, how is the community advised? What processes are followed to allow the community to know not to go to Calvary casualty when it is in bypass mode?

MR MOORE: The bypass is for serious things. If your child is vomiting or has cut their hand and you are concerned, you can still go to Calvary. The advice goes to the ambulance officers so that when there are serious matters they know not to waste time going to Calvary but to go directly to the Canberra Hospital. Of course, that puts extra strain on the Canberra Hospital, which very rarely goes onto bypass. Bypass of the Canberra Hospital means that both hospitals are full. That means transport out of Canberra. That happens very rarely, and we are trying to make sure that it happens even less often, with the appointment recently of some extra specialists to the accident and emergency department at Canberra Hospital.

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. On 16 April 1996, when introducing Appropriation Bill (No. 2) to deal with the health budget blow-out, the Chief Minister said in this place, boastfully and blush free:

Put simply, we are not prepared to adopt the practice that has been used in previous years of making artificial cash management arrangements to conceal what is a significant overrun in the health and community care budget. This Government believes that a second appropriation by the Assembly is a more open and transparent mechanism for budget adjustment.

Mr Speaker, today I will outline why this overrun has occurred and what steps the Department of Health and Community Care is taking to address what is a clearly unacceptable budget performance. The community should demand nothing less.

When will the Chief Minister and Treasurer announce Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 1998-99 so that she can once again "outline why this overrun has occurred and what steps the Department of Health and Community Care is taking to address what is a clearly unacceptable budget performance"?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, at this stage it is my advice that it is simply not necessary, so why would I inform the Assembly that we needed to do it? We do not need to at this stage.

MR BERRY: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Where will the money come from and what services to the community will be cut to make up for the overrun?

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