Page 1069 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 April 1994
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Will he be able to actually introduce the long awaited case-mix funding initiatives which have been promised and promised again but still have not been implemented? In Victoria they were implemented within 12 months of the Kennett Government coming to power. Look at what that has achieved. Over Christmas in Victoria there were no shut-downs of the hospitals. And why? The hospitals are rewarded directly for the patients that they see. Therefore, they actually get more money for efficiency and throughput, unlike in our hospital system.
Will the Minister restore the morale amongst the front-line health workers who are trying so hard to cope under such difficult circumstances but have just been ignored in the past? Will he fully utilise the health care capacity of the private sector and voluntary organisations in the ACT - organisations and private sector operations that feel totally ignored, that believe that they are not part of the whole health system? I know that the new Minister understands that any good health system is a balance of private and public. Will he allow a new private hospital to open and to function in the ACT?
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The honourable member's time has expired.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (3.41): Mr Deputy Speaker, I sat comparatively silently during Mrs Carnell's MPI speech on an area of my ministerial responsibility. I restrained my urge to interject because I was - - -
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: And it will continue, Mr Minister.
MR CONNOLLY: Unlike perhaps members opposite, I restrained the interjections because I was interested to see whether Mrs Carnell had anything to suggest that we could actually do about health. I wondered whether she indeed had the magic wand that I clearly do not have, that Mr Berry did not have and that nobody has to magically solve the ever increasing demand on our health system within the resource constraints that face this Government, that face all governments in the ACT and that face all governments in Australia. Sadly, all we had served up today was the same old worn out rhetoric attacking Mr Berry. Mrs Carnell still seems to want to attack Mr Berry, even though I am the Minister, which when you analyse it - - -
Mr Berry: I would not worry about that too much if I were you.
MR CONNOLLY: I am sure that my turn will come, Mr Berry. When you analyse Mrs Carnell's argument, it boils down to two propositions: The Government must spend more, and the Government must spend less, but at the same time, presumably. There was a litany of complaints which all basically boil down to the proposition that we need more resources; that we need to spend more here, spend more there, spend more everywhere. There was not one suggestion for cutting back on recurrent costs, although there is the argument that the Liberals keep bowling up in this place that the hospice should not be on Acton Peninsula but should be at Calvary, which they claim may save on the capital cost of building and produce some marginal recurrent cost saving, but it is a drop in the ocean compared to the overall issue of savings in a $270m health budget.
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