Page 3435 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson! Stop the clock for a moment. Resume your seat, Ms Bresnan. Ms Bresnan is having enough difficulty making her voice heard, given that she has a sore throat. Please be quiet. She will be heard in silence.
Mr Coe: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Coe.
Mr Coe: I think we would all benefit if Ms Bresnan was to actually stay relevant to the topic at hand.
MS BRESNAN: On the point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, in his speech Mr Hanson got on to talking about the local hospital network and making the claims that I am actually counteracting now. He raised the topic; I am just addressing it now.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Ms Bresnan, please continue.
MS BRESNAN: I will conclude. He was displaying the glass jaw once again. I do not think anyone is saying it is wrong to be reading out the names of the people who work hard every day in the health system. I am just referring to how disingenuous it is, given the attacks we have seen on the health system and calling it the worst in the country, to be talking about negativity and personal attacks when Mr Hanson has made a practice of it, not just in here but in briefings as well.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Health and Minister for Territory and Municipal Services) (5.25): This, again, is a very important part of national health reform. This is pulling out of the health budget as part of our agreement under national health reform the local hospital network. We have established that in line with our commitments. This allows for a separate financial area to be constructed within what has previously been ACT Health. We have the Local Hospital Network Council, which takes into account our four inpatient units—that is, Clare Holland House, QEII, Calvary Public Hospital and Canberra Hospital—and shows, as a part of the requirements for the commonwealth funding to flow, the allocation of funds that are going directly into those inpatient facilities.
For us, largely it is a technical way of dealing with this issue rather than in larger jurisdictions where they have established a number of different local hospital networks for that point in time. We have now got one that takes us in as a whole regional area. This is the funding that will fund our hospitals and allow for all of those services and the initiatives that I have outlined in my previous speech to be allocated funding.
This is the emergency department and the elective surgery system, but it is all of the other things, the majority of the health system, which does not constitute those two areas, into the inpatient units. It will become clearer, I think, in budgets in the future
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