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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 496 ..

MRS BURKE (4.21): I want to pick up on a couple of points that my colleagues have put across. I have listened to Mr Corbell’s comments too and I want to ask: why are we paying so much for so little? It seems a statement of the bleeding obvious, but why are we lagging behind in the ACT so badly? We have a government that purports to be managing things well and says that everything is hunky-dory, yet the evidence speaks for itself in the latest cost-effectiveness results for public hospital inpatient services.

Could it be that we have a minister who is not really committed to our public hospitals? Is that the problem? Is it that we have a minister who is not committed to ensuring that our hospitals run better with him at the helm? He likes to jibe and punch at the shadow health minister. He should take a look in the mirror. I do not think his performance is a shining example of how to run a public hospital system. When we have people crying out for good leadership, we have a minister that really is not demonstrating that at all, and as a result people are floundering. This minister chooses to continually blame the shadow minister for health, which is a bit feeble.

Could it be that we have a minister who thinks that by merely throwing money at a problem it will make it all better? Both Mr Corbell and Mrs Dunne have said that the Liberals spent money. We did, but we spent well. We also ensured that hospitals were given the resources to do the job that they needed to do to provide a better quality and level of service—more bang for the buck. What is becoming an all too familiar picture with this government is that they do not want to give value for money. They cannot give value for money; they are not on top of the job. I like to call it—I think quite appropriately—a bandaid approach. They seem to have no commitment to get to the bottom of the real issues. Health is just one aspect, which I will stick to now, but it seems to be a template for all other portfolios; perhaps I can talk about them another day.

Why is the minister not finding out why we have a hospital in the ACT that became the least cost-effective public hospital system in Australia? The minister should stop deflecting his responsibility by blaming the opposition. He can see for himself the figures; they are quite clear. It may be worth going through some of those now for the public record. The report states that, while national cost effectiveness in providing public hospital inpatient services declined by 7.7 per cent between 2000-01 and 2001-02, ACT cost effectiveness declined by a whopping 12.8 per cent. What is going on?

It is not good enough for the minister to blame others. It is not good enough for the minister to stand there, arrogantly and unashamedly, making it appear that the opposition are putting the blame on and pointing the finger at workers on the ground. That is an all too common cry from the government and it is a pathetic excuse for poor leadership. The report states:

The ACT became the least cost-effective public hospital system in Australia in 2001-02—

This is staggering! I know Mrs Dunne is as appalled as I am at this—

‘overtaking’ the Northern Territory which, due to extraordinary costs, had achieved the lowest result in all previous surveys.

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