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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 10 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2948 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

30 July figure. If you like, we will start providing daily figures. I will have to devote two or three staff full time to their provision, but if you would like to know the number of people on the waiting list on each day in July, I am sure-

Mr Quinlan: What time of day?

MR STANHOPE: Can we settle on a time-midday of each day of July? I can give you a waiting list number for midday of each day of July if that would help you. Mr Humphries, you spent a little while in this seat as minister for health. You did it in the first half of 1998.

Mr Humphries: For eight weeks.

MR STANHOPE: You did some damage in eight weeks. There were 4,660 people on the waiting list in July after your term in office. In July 2002-I assume that these numbers were taken for the same day, but I do not know on which day in July they were taken-there were 3,921 people on the waiting lists.

The point from the numbers that I quoted and the statements that I made in relation to a reduction is that over the last five years the waiting list has trended down significantly and noticeably. On a July to July comparison, it has trended down from 4,660 when Gary Humphries left the office of minister for health to 3,921, which is the July figure. I have to confess that I do not know which day in July that was taken from.

Health action plan

MS GALLAGHER: My question is also to the Minister for Health. Members will recall the extremely successful health summit organised by the Minister for Health in February, delivering on a key election commitment of the Labor Party. An important outcome of the summit was agreement to develop a health action plan for the territory. Can the minister tell the Assembly what progress has been made in public consultation over the government's innovative health action plan since the release of the draft strategy on 8 August?

MR STANHOPE: Yes. Indeed, it was a very successful health summit, successful for a number of reasons. Of course, we enjoyed the company of both the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition at the summit. They made a quite fruitful contribution to the day. To the extent that they had any doubts about its success, I admired their capacity for self-assessment.

We did hold a summit in February. It was an extremely successful summit. Of course, the holding of the summit was the result of a significant promise that we made in the election campaign. The summit involved, I think, a representative of every one of the stakeholder organisations in the ACT that are concerned with the delivery of health care for the people of the ACT. I was most pleased that I was able to release for public consultation on 8 August the fruits of the health summit in the form of the draft health action plan.

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