Page 4696 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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Hospital Waiting Lists
MRS GRASSBY: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Health - and I would really appreciate it if Mrs Carnell would shut up and I could hear the answer.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mrs Grassby, I will keep order. Please continue.
MRS GRASSBY: Could the Minister inform the Assembly as to the true state of the financial performance of the Department of Health, as there seems to be some confusion in the minds of Mrs Carnell.
MR CONNOLLY: Indeed, there is some confusion - considerable confusion - in all of her minds. Madam Speaker, again I will quote, quite slowly, from a printed document, which I will then table. I think we should try to make this simple for the Opposition, so that they can understand it. Mr Fraser says:
Concerning the financial performance of the Department, I reiterate my earlier advice to you that I believe the Department will live within the global budget appropriated in 1994/95.
Again, that is a significant improvement on the $17m blow-out achieved when the Liberals were last in office. Mr Fraser continues:
The end-of-October financial position at WVH which Mrs Carnell is quoting shows actual expenditure to the end-of-October, compared to the initial prediction of what would be spent by that time ie, the predicted monthly cash flows. Inevitably there are variations in the timing of payments which cause the year-to-date position to look better or worse than it actually is.
In addition, the monthly cash flows on which the WVH end-of-October position was based did not include funds which have now been transferred to WVH from central office. These include funding for the unbudgeted increases in the Comcare premium, and the costs associated with the transfer of nurses to the Department of Finance pay-roll. These funds have been made available by the re-allocation of funds previously allocated for redundancy payments, which the Department believes are likely to remain unspent at the end of the financial year. As you know, Treasury has agreed to these funds being re-allocated to cover the pressures referred to above, which arose after the budget. I believe the approach being adopted here is consistent with good practice and program budgeting.
That is something that the Opposition is constantly on about.
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