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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4283 ..

MS TUCKER: I have this as "to develop by the end of the last sitting week in June 2003, an implementation strategy with timelines and targets". That is obviously giving government an opportunity to produce an implementation strategy.

I think that the question of performance measures and targets is really important, because these actually force governments to produce, in a coordinated way, a plan for action that can be applied in the short term, the medium term and the long term, a model I have seen used on occasions. I think that model is a good one, because it allows you to actually then see the government's sense of priorities and know what the long-term plan is. Of course, these plans can be amended. It is not as if they are set in concrete. I certainly feel more confident if I see something like that, because it gives me the sense that the government actually does know what it is doing.

This government has also committed to developing a social plan. If the government is committed to developing a social plan then I would have thought that what I am proposing here would be quite acceptable, because it is consistent with the notion of a social plan. It is about bringing the health planning process into alignment with the philosophy behind commitment to a social plan. I think there have been some real problems with such performance measures in the past.

One of the measures that I find rather useless is ministerial satisfaction with the work of the executive officers. I feel that, in a way, this came out of Kate Carnell's chief ministership. There was a tendency to manage problems rather than deliver services. Performance measures such as ministerial satisfaction really only reinforce that approach.

By the same token, you could say that Bob Hawke's promise that no child would live in poverty by the year 2000 was also an inappropriate performance target, because it was unrealistic, and obviously because no-one really felt that the Hawke government would shift resources to the massive degree required to reach such a target. I think we do need to see an implementation strategy that is well thought out and developed in consultation with community services and other stakeholders.

It is interesting to look at the notes that I took at the launch of the health action plan 2002. The first representative who spoke was from the nursing union and the response was that this plan was very broad brush and an aspirational document, and that is clearly what it is. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is good to have such a document. However, as I have already said in a couple of ways, it now has to be supported by an implementation strategy. That was a comment that came from the nursing profession at that launch.

There were also concerns expressed by the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation about financial accountability and a lack of transparent figures. The federation felt that the health action plan 2002 was a glossy brochure produced to make people feel good, but it needed more detail. Once again, they felt it needed clear articulated goals-times and targets. That was a comment from the salaried medical officers.

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