Page 1502 - Week 05 - Thursday, 12 May 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The Audit Act provides for the lodging before the Assembly as soon as practicable after 30 June each year of information relating to the supplementation of agencies from the Treasurer's Advance. As advised in the response to the Public Accounts Committee's report, usage of the Treasurer's Advance is not a final charge until after the completion of the financial year. Relevant instruments will be provided in accordance with the Audit Act and the Government response to the Public Accounts Committee report once final results for the financial year are available.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
HEALTH (AMENDMENT) BILL 1994
Debate resumed from 21 April 1994, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (4.15): Madam Speaker, this Bill amends the principal Act in three ways. First, it provides for the addition of explanatory notes to the Medicare principles and commitments; secondly, it allows for the release of confidential information for the prevention or detection of fraud; and, thirdly, it allows the Executive to make regulations, consistent with the Act, to give effect to provisions within the Act.
First, I would like to speak about the explanatory footnotes. The inclusion of these explanatory footnotes as set out in the Commonwealth Medicare Agreements Act 1992 is fairly non-controversial and, I think, is an improvement to the principal Act. The footnotes state the obligation of the ACT to provide a high standard of hospital services and commit the Territory to improving the efficiency, the effectiveness and the quality of hospital service delivery. I wonder whether the Minister is confident that these obligations can be met. You would have to doubt that. You really would wonder what benchmarks will be used to test whether the ACT's public hospitals are measuring up to the standards required under this Act. These amendments to the Health Act also require the Territory to provide information on the services people can expect to receive from our public hospital system. I expect the Minister to publicise that information so that existing patients, and all those on the waiting list - that is, the 4,416 people on the waiting list - know what sort of services they can expect to receive when they finally get around to receiving them.
As the inclusions reflect the explanatory notes in the Commonwealth Medicare Agreements Act 1992, the ACT Health Act will now meet the requirements of the Medicare agreement. That is well and good; but why were these guidelines, which govern the standard of delivery of public hospital services, omitted from the Health Act in 1993? Was it that the Minister at the time was not confident that the standards could be met, or, as is more likely, was it due to the speed with which the Health Bill was raced through the Assembly last year? Do you remember the Health Bill? That was the Bill that was introduced one week and then brought in for debate the following week, which, of course, resulted in quite substantial debate in the Assembly. It just shows what happens when you race Bills through. You have to bring them back because you do not get them right.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .