Page 3652 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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It is particularly disappointing to hear the health minister again say that there is no evidence, that it is perceived problems, that I am not putting forward an argument as to why we should even try and consider hospital boards. It is not leadership for her to stand in this place and say those sorts of things. I am standing here trying to offer some form of help. Whether the federal government does this or not, I happen to believe in it. I will refer to the media release that Mr Stanhope referred to and quoted from. He did not read the whole thing in context. Mr Speaker, you were the health minister at that time; I think you would know some further detail and the depth of what went on.
Engaging the community is critical. I do not think that the community are engaged enough. I would pick up Dr Foskey on one point. She obviously did not read the information on the make-up of the board: one member from the Consumers Health Forum of Australia would be included, so when she says that consumers would not be represented, that is not quite true. Members can read the bill for themselves. I hope that at some stage or in another Assembly I will have the opportunity to bring this up again.
People have mentioned Calvary. Let us not forget that Calvary already operates under a board of management. I think it would have no problems with this concept whatsoever. I think that hospital boards and the whole concept are a bit of a scare for the government. In 1992 the then Labor members wanted to dissolve the board and delete the requirements for the board under the Health Services Act. You could not do it quickly enough. I will talk about that a little later.
For months on end, Mr Mulcahy and I have been pointing out ad nauseam in this place the many problems that have been occurring in our health system, particularly the hospital system. The whole system within our hospitals needs further inquiry and looking at. The installation of a board was one way. The other way was to have an inquiry under the Inquiries Act. Members in this place would realise that that was needed, because it would be much broader than an internal independent review and a coronial inquiry over one case.
It seems that we are starting to have the Reba Meagher defence. That is pretty sad. You talk about being open and accountable; yet, by the same token, in 2000 in this place the then opposition Labor Party agreed to push the then Liberal government for an inquiry into the disability services. That was granted. Knocking all these things on the head shows me how desperate the government, particularly the health minister, are—to not want anybody to come in and have a look at the books, if I could put it that way.
Mr Stanhope read from a media release entitled “Service quits over Assembly interference”. We all know now that that was in relation to the current chair of the board, Mr Jim Service. It is interesting that we had some of those comments made in part; we need to make sure that they are put into context. At the beginning of the article, it talks about Mr Service being chair and resigning. Mr Speaker, you are mentioned here too. The article states:
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