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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (30 November) . . Page.. 3511 ..

MR HARGREAVES: I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister expand on the comment he just made that it is quite appropriate for the hospital to encourage people who front at the accident and emergency centre to use private insurance? Surely it is the responsibility of the people at accident and emergency to concern themselves more with the medical condition of people than with what is more appropriate-the financial health of the hospital or the medical health of the people.

MR MOORE: Priority one is patient care. I think that is the point you are making. Patient care is the first priority of all our nurses and members of the medical professions. They know that. I constantly reiterate that. The hospital knows that. That is what is delivered. The accident and emergency area has a very high level of satisfaction among people who have been through it and whom we have asked, "Were you treated well?" That does not mean to say that sometimes some people are not happy.

A huge number of people go through that area. They are put into five categories. If someone arrives with very serious burns, the whole area focuses on them and makes sure that it deals with them. The result is that someone in category four or five, people who need the care of their GP, will sometimes be asked to wait. I have been in the emergency area when it has been treating a burns patient, and the effort put in was absolutely brilliant. If there is a burns patient there, other people have to wait. Sometimes those people get very unhappy if they have to wait three or four hours or even longer. The most important priority is patient care. However, it is entirely appropriate for the Canberra Hospital to invite people to use their private insurance and to let them know the advantage.

MR OSBORNE: My question is to the new minister for housing. It is in response to an inquiry from one of my constituents. I am hoping the minister can explain an aspect of the government's housing policy. There are a number of ACT Housing tenants who have children that live in the home on a part-time basis due to their parents formally living apart. Sometimes shared custody arrangements are complicated even further when partners remarry, which is the case with my constituents, and either they have new children or one or both bring children with them into the marriage. The scenario can be very complex as different groups of children come and go from the house during the week.

I am informed that apparently a popular formula for shared custody is for one of the parents to have the children for five days per fortnight. This allows the children to stay in the two homes on the same days every week and amounts to about 35 per cent care. In such a case where children stay in the home for five days per fortnight, family allowance supplement payments are paid from the department of social services.

Why is this extra allowance included when rental payments are calculated by your department but the children are not considered to be residents of the home until they live there for at least 50 per cent of the time? The department seems to be very happy to take money from part-time residents of the family but does not include them in important decisions such as the size of the house the family lives in. Is this not grossly unbalanced and unfair and a form of discrimination against these families?

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