Page 3653 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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The Minister for Health, Wayne Berry, said yesterday that he was disappointed by Mr Service’s decision to leave, but would move at the earliest opportunity to amend the Health Services Act to delete the requirement for a board.
Clearly there was no longing to replace that board. You just did not want it to work. Mr Service is quoted as saying:
So much time and effort went into answering requests from the Assembly that there was little time left to manage the system …
We can all smile in this place now because it is easy to see that this was a ploy to bog down the board. The then Labor government did not want the board to exist. What it did was remove the power.
Mr Barr: Right!
MRS BURKE: I will go on if you are finding it amusing. You might want to read this, Mr Barr. If you read it in context you will see that it is quite a different picture from the one that was painted by Mr Stanhope. I think he did quote what Mr Service said, but he did not quote what Mr Kaine said, and this has some bearing and puts it into context a little more. The article quoted Mr Kaine as saying:
… it was outrageous for Mr Berry to say the resignations had been prompted by the Opposition when the Assembly decision requiring Mr Berry to present more detailed quarterly financial statement had been supported by the Government.
I am saddened that Jim Service and Gail Freeman felt compelled to resign … Their performance gave Health a glimmer of hope that the Minister has never been able to give.
The Liberal spokeswoman on health, Kate Carnell, said she could only assume, “as a previous board member”, that Mr Service and Ms Freeman had resigned because they had not been given the power to get on with the job and fix the system.
That just about says it all. The government do not want to relinquish power at any step along the way here. They want to keep everything internal. That is really disappointing.
The reinstatement of a hospital board for public hospitals in the ACT would result in management that would be more closely reflective of the needs of the community. Why? Because a full range of people from the community would be represented on that board. The bill proposes that the formation of a board would be truly balanced, with, as I said, a representation of a cross-section of the community and a cross-section of expertise.
The Chief Minister admits that it is not about beds or money: it is about systemic issues. Mr Stanhope is now twisting that to say that he did not really mean that about the full range of things that were going on at the hospital: it was about one case. When this government do not want to talk about individual cases, they will not; but when they want them to substantiate their argument, they do. I find that quite strange.
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