Page 3611 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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ACT, which we will probably have to accept because they will tie it to funding, as they have done in education, and they require certain levels of performance data, we will not have to change anything we do, because we already provide all the performance data that Tony Abbott is seeking—
Mr Mulcahy: You are kidding yourself.
MS GALLAGHER: We provide all of it, Mr Mulcahy. Come to me and show me what level we do not report on, what information we—
Mr Mulcahy: I did last week. I didn’t say you didn’t report on it. I said—
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
MS GALLAGHER: Well, listen to the point that I am making. The point I am making is that tied to the hospital board is a proposal to improve performance data and performance information being provided to the public—and you will not find one area that we currently do not report on. So, if it is all about openness and transparency and getting back information to the community and all that, we already do it. We will not have to change a thing.
I can tell you about imposing a hospital board on the Canberra Hospital alone. I do not think you are looking at extending your proposal to Calvary, because presumably the public system at Calvary does not have the same range of issues that the Canberra Hospital has. I do not know. I do not know whether you want to talk to the Little Company Of Mary about how they might fit in with your whole new agenda of hospital boards. But there is not one way you can say that a hospital board will deal with the issues that our hospitals deal with day by day and that it will be able to respond. Have you looked at the structure of the Canberra Hospital—the way the Canberra Hospital is structured now? It is a very flat approach. There are directors of units within the hospital and there is the chief executive, who is supported by a chief nurse—
Mrs Burke: It is just not serving the people of Canberra. They are the ones saying this, not me.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mrs Burke.
MS GALLAGHER: That is absolute rubbish, Mrs Burke. You need to prove your point: “it is not serving the people of Canberra”. What an outrageous thing to say—attacking our hospital and our hospital staff as not meeting the needs of Canberra.
Mrs Burke: Read your letters. In denial: I am attacking you! It is about you as minister—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mrs Burke.
MS GALLAGHER: We have a major tertiary referral centre. We are servicing a region. Every single day our emergency department deals with over 150 people
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