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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 4 Hansard (22 April) . . Page.. 1180 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the performance in day surgery is particularly disappointing, especially given that this style of surgery, where useable for appropriate cases, is both convenient for patients and saves valuable hospital resources for other work. Day theatre cases are balanced with overnight stay patients to achieve the best mix for optimal theatre time utilisation. In meeting both the cost-weighted separation targets and the throughput from the waiting list there is a fine balance between the larger raw numbers of patients that can be treated as day cases versus the higher complexity but lower volume of the overnight stay patients. Also integral to this is the fact that the higher urgency cases are less likely to be day only. I am monitoring this performance month by month and have made it plain that I expect the hospital, within the constraints of the balance I mentioned above, to do all it can to make the most use it can of day surgery.

MS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.40): Mr Speaker, I ask for leave of the Assembly to make a ministerial statement on Commonwealth year 2000 information disclosure legislation.

Leave granted.

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, it is with pleasure that, in the spirit of the Administration (Interstate Agreements) Act 1997, I provide this brief to the Assembly regarding the status within the Territory of the Commonwealth Year 2000 Information Disclosure Act 1999, which was enacted on 26 February 1999. You will be aware that recently I wrote to each member of the Legislative Assembly on this topic.

The purpose of the Year 2000 Information Disclosure Act is to improve the flow of information among organisations and to the community about the progress being made by organisations to prepare their computer systems to handle dates in the year 2000, otherwise known as Y2K, and beyond. The Act seeks to achieve this by limiting legal liability for the public disclosure of information relating to the status of Y2K preparations which are made in good faith. Under the legislation, a person or organisation making a disclosure is, under circumstances set out in the Act, protected against a civil action arising out of making the disclosure and the disclosure being used in evidence against a person or organisation in a civil action.

The Government decided, following an offer from the Federal Government, that it would accept coverage under the Commonwealth legislation rather than enacting legislation specific to the Territory. The view among all States, the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory is that each jurisdiction must be covered by the Commonwealth legislation or must implement legislation based upon the Commonwealth's template. With regard to the States, limitations on the power of the Commonwealth are such that some State-based complementary legislation is required to cover areas that the Commonwealth is constitutionally unable to cover. Members will have noticed reports in the press that South Australia has enacted and Victoria is currently enacting complementary legislation based on the Commonwealth's template. All other States

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