Page 2425 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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request that these negotiations not be made public, and I think that is something that we should be listening to and respecting. Also, as the health minister stated today, and as we have also been informed about in the briefings, the Little Company of Mary do have a very hierarchical structure which all decisions have to go through. They do literally have to go to Rome.
Members interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson and Mr Seselja, if you want to have a conversation, have it outside.
MS BRESNAN: We have all had the same briefings, so they know about this as well. It is a very complicated structure that it has to go through. So that is something we have to respect with these sorts of organisations, particularly an organisation like Calvary: if they make these requests, respect them.
The thing we are still not clear about is: do the Liberal Party actually support this purchase? We have not had any statements about that. The Greens think that public health services should be in public hands and we support the purchase; we think it is a good thing to be happening.
Referring to our amendment, we want to see commitment to services. We have consistently stated that we want a commitment to the sorts of services that are provided at Calvary, and this is reflected in our amendment at paragraph 2(a). This is a key issue which has been raised by organisations like the AMA, and also from the public, and is one which needs to be addressed substantially.
Paragraph 2(b) is about consultation about services with users of Calvary. As I understand it, this is something which does occur now, so it should be a process which can be undertaken fairly easily. Again, a particular type of philosophy is applied at Calvary and a particular level of service and quality of service, so it is about recognising that and respecting the people who use that service.
Paragraph 2(c) is about ensuring that certain recommendations from the estimates report are implemented. Recommendation 53 was about the budgetary performance of Calvary. It is a recommendation that each member of the committee agreed to and it is basically about getting clarity on the performance of both the Canberra and Calvary hospitals. A number of statements have been made about whether Calvary underperforms. The budget papers were somewhat unclear about this because there were a number of indicators which showed that Calvary outperformed TCH in some areas.
Referring to the estimates discussion, there was a wide-ranging discussion about this, and I do understand, obviously, as was explained by department officials, that TCH is the major regional tertiary service in the region and obviously, then, it does have somewhat of a different performance to Calvary. But it is just about having clarity about this, so that we understand the processes there.
Recommendation 54 asks the minister to explain where funding for the purchase would come from. Is it unencumbered cash? Is it allocations for health growth funds?
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