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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2913 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

first and foremost, at what has been done since that time and then I will answer the bit about the EBA that Mr Berry asked as well. Mr Speaker, when the Auditor-General's report was brought down in, I think, June this year, or was it July - it was in that area - we immediately put in place an implementation plan for that particular report. Immediately, a meeting was held with representatives of salaried specialists, the Auditor-General's department itself, ASMOF and hospital staff. All salaried specialists were informed of a proposed implementation approach.

The issues that were put on the table were the 1994 internal review that had come to light as a result of this approach and the AG's report, and a decision was taken to look at every salaried specialist's own personal file to determine exactly what the situation was, because although the Auditor-General looked at the situation in total he did not actually get under the figures and look at the individual salaried medical practitioners. What was put in place - not today, but back in July - was an approach that would assess compliance with conditions of private practice arrangements, facilities, charges, private practice billing and receipting, activity levels for salaried specialists, and administration of all sorts of leave.

What we then did was put together a personal profile for each one of those salaried specialists which we will now require them to sign off on as being true statements. My understanding is that that is due to come about as early as next week, Mr Speaker, because a lot of that work has already been done. Rather than sit on our hands on this issue, as the previous Government did with their June 1994 internal, not public, secret, in the bottom drawer report, Mr Speaker, we acted immediately. We have also made it very clear that any - - -

Ms Reilly: Why was it such a mess?

MR SPEAKER: Order!

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I think members can see that we immediately put in place an appropriate approach. Mr Berry raised the EBA negotiations in his question and suggested that somehow the ACT Government or ACT Health had given the salaried medical practitioners or salaried medical officers a better deal than others. The salaried medical officers enterprise bargaining agreement covered the period from March 1996 to June 1997 - a significantly shorter period than other EBAs. Other enterprise bargaining agreements for staff at the Canberra Hospital covering nursing and other hospital employees extended for up to three years. The salaried medical officers EBA 1996-97 agreed to pay increases of 5.6 per cent, of which 2 per cent was related to productivity, which is very much in line with all of the other agreements.

One of the productivity offsets during the life of the agreement has included an arrangement with junior medical staff to access their recreational leave during the year that they get it, rather than a payment at the end of the contract period. This has saved significantly on relief costs. The list goes on, Mr Speaker. Other EBAs for other staff at the hospital included a 7.1 per cent fully funded pay increase and a minimum of 3 per cent funded by productivity improvements. But, Mr Speaker, as I said, they were over three years. So the agreements were not all that dissimilar, except that one was significantly shorter than the other.

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