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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (6 May) . . Page.. 990 ..
I have not heard a great deal of complaint either, I must say, from ACTION employees. There was some concern before the move was put into effect that there would be some reduction in the level of service. Since the move has taken place there has been no complaint. Interestingly enough, on the day that the move took place there was not a single member of the union or a single employee of ACTION who attended that site to register any complaint at all about what was being done. The answer is no - - -
Mr Berry: Good. Why did you not say that in the first place and sit down? That would have saved us a lot of time.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR KAINE: There has been no reduction in the level of service to the public. Is that what you wanted to hear, Mr Berry? In fact, the Government is achieving two objectives: It is upgrading the accessibility of that area to the public and the safety of it at night, and at the same time is maintaining the same standards of service as existed before that upgrading was commenced. I think the travelling public have demonstrated that they are quite happy with the new circumstances.
MR BERRY: My question is directed to the Minister for Health. The Canberra Hospital information bulletin for 1997 shows that waiting lists for elective surgery have grown by a massive 331, or 12 per cent. On 11 April she responded by saying that waiting list figures usually increase during the Christmas shutdown. If this is so, will the Minister explain why, for the same period in the previous year, the waiting list for surgery, as shown in the January 1996 bulletin, fell by 27?
MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I am amazed that Mr Berry, a former Health Minister who, with Health Minister Connolly, managed to take waiting lists from 1,700 to 4,500, could actually ask a question about waiting lists. It is certainly true that waiting lists did go up in January and will go up in February. We will table those figures in this sitting period. They will go down in March. We will table both of those figures in this sitting period. Even with the increase in January, a smaller increase in February and then a decrease in March, which takes us back to the January figures, there are still some 645 people fewer on the waiting list than when we came to government. That is a 15 per cent reduction since we came to government, unlike the 1,700 to 4,500 increase under the previous Government. The decrease to the end of March, compared with March 12 months ago, I think, is 262. So, there is still a downward trend. Certainly, in January the figures went up. They went up because - - -
Mr Berry: The biggest blow-out ever.
MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, there was a 1,700 to 4,500 increase, and he talks about a blow-out. We are still 15 per cent down on when we took government. I think that is a pretty fair go. We also believe that the waiting lists are still a major issue for the ACT, and in my budget speech later today I will make some further comments about that.
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