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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 8 Hansard (8 August) . . Page.. 2551 ..

Mr Moore: Mr Speaker, it depends how you interpret it, but when I continue to hear the self-righteous nonsense from this man, then I may well be tempted to use foul language. If Mr Stanhope thinks "You give me the pips" is foul language, so be it.

MR SPEAKER: I cannot rule on that word. I trust no other word was used. If it was, I must ask you to withdraw it.

MR STANHOPE: Perhaps I did not listen to the minister's speech as closely as I should have, but I thought in his speech he was saying that in meetings with the midwives he had addressed their concerns by suggesting that he would do for them what he had done for the doctors. He made the point that he did not think it was appropriate for the government to start picking up indemnity insurance premiums. We can have a debate about that. He suggested that he would not do that for doctors and asked why he would do it for midwives. He went on to indicate very firmly, and led me to believe, that what he was doing was saying he had no difficulty doing for midwives what he was doing for doctors. So we go to the record on what it is that he is doing for doctors.

Mr Moore: The gospel of the Canberra Doctor.

MR STANHOPE: This is interesting. The minister now suggests that the AMA's newsletter misrepresents his position. Let me put on the record the AMA's understanding about what the minister is doing. The minister now suggests that perhaps the AMA have got it wrong. It appears that none of us here heard what he said. It is appropriate that I read into the record what the government is prepared to do for doctors. This is the proposal that the AMA apparently, in the understanding of the AMA, has worked out with the government:

The Medical Indemnity Cover Proposal is based on using the combined purchasing power of ACT specialist doctors and the Government to get a better overall deal for ACT specialists.

I thought what the minister was saying was that we could replace the word "specialist" or "doctor" with "midwife" wherever occurring. I think in our reading of this we should do that. The article further states:

Specialists will pay the Government in a manner yet to be agreed, their indemnity premium at the level they paid for 2000/2001 and the premium will be used to arrange a two part program:

the ACT Public Practice Scheme, which will cover all ACT public work; and

the Specialists Private Practice Arrangements, which will cover all private practice in the ACT and any practice outside the ACT.

If we can develop a private practice scheme for VMOs, I am pleased to hear that apparently are we going to develop a private practice scheme for midwives. The article goes on:

The ACT Public Practice Scheme will be administered through the ACT Treasury. The Specialist Private Practice Arrangement will be put out to tender, with a tenderer being selected by a Tender Panel.

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