❓ Mr. L'Estrange questions the Minister for Health regarding the AMA's call for an independent investigation into the health system. The Minister rejects the AMA's request, citing existing measures and criticising the previous government's handling of similar issues.
AnsweredQoN 650Legislative Assembly
QuestionView source ↗
HEALTH SYSTEM —
AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION — COMMENTS
650. Mr S.K. L'ESTRANGE to the Minister for Health:
Before I ask my question, I welcome
the boys and teachers of Hale School, who are about to exit the chamber. It is
lovely to have the boys from Hale School in my electorate at Parliament House
today.
I refer to the media statement by
the Australian Medical Association of Western Australia, released today, and I quote
—
The government must immediately
convene an independent investigation into the operation and management of the
health system.
(1) Does the minister accept the
concerns raised by this peak medical body?
(2) Will he
immediately commit to an independent investigation into the culture,
performance, accountability and transparency issues impacting the health
portfolio, as requested by the AMA?
AUSTRALIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION — COMMENTS
650. Mr S.K. L'ESTRANGE to the Minister for Health:
Before I ask my question, I welcome
the boys and teachers of Hale School, who are about to exit the chamber. It is
lovely to have the boys from Hale School in my electorate at Parliament House
today.
I refer to the media statement by
the Australian Medical Association of Western Australia, released today, and I quote
—
The government must immediately
convene an independent investigation into the operation and management of the
health system.
(1) Does the minister accept the
concerns raised by this peak medical body?
(2) Will he
immediately commit to an independent investigation into the culture,
performance, accountability and transparency issues impacting the health
portfolio, as requested by the AMA?
AnswerView source ↗
Before I answer, on behalf of the
member for Forrestfield, I welcome the students from Darling Range Sports
College here today. It is good to have them with us.
(1)–(2) I
do not accept the assertion or the request proposed by the AMA. As the member
well knows, we have taken a range of deliberate and purposeful steps to ensure
that we are on top of this issue. That has ranged from me requesting from the
system manager, the director general of Health, what each of the health service
providers have put in place since they came into being in June 2016 and what
safeguards are in place to ensure that these things do not happen again. In
addition to that, as the house knows, we have asked the Public Sector
Commissioner to do an inquiry into the procurement arrangements to ensure that
she is satisfied that we have all the necessary systems in place to ensure that
we have procurement and other issues within the department under control. Of
course, it is important that we do that, because I, like everyone else, was
disturbed to see the level of corruption uncovered by the Corruption and Crime
Commission in relation to the work at North Metropolitan Health Service. It was
disappointing and disturbing. We think it is important to get on top of these
issues, which is the reason that we have taken the steps. These will be
important steps to ensure that we are on top of it, we have the systems in
place and we have the culture in place. What I will do is to promise to take
action. We will see from these steps just how seriously we take this.
This stands in stark contrast to when
the Liberal Party was in office, when Hon Kim Hames was presented with a report
from the CCC. That was about some corruption that took place in the south
metropolitan part of the system. In June 2014 he said —
We think we are doing a pretty good
job, to be honest, in the way we manage procurement in this state.
This is in June 2014, when we were at
the height of the activities that were going on at that time. Clearly, Hon Kim
Hames thought the former government was doing the job, but just as we see with
this other mob when it is in government, they are like the Betty Crockers of
government—they are in the set and forget phase. They made assurances
and we just had to assume that they would look after these things. This was
during the time, which the CCC has now pointed out, when the corruption was at
its highest. Yet here we had the Minister for Health in the previous government
providing assurances that it was not going to happen again. He said —
� it is absolutely critical that we
have good systems in place to make sure that what happened under a Labor
government's watch does not happen under ours.
As we all now know, the very opposite
was taking place; that is, the former government did not learn the lessons from
that particular case, it did not put the measures in place, it did not
investigate properly and it did not get on top of it. We will; we will take
care of this issue, because we have the department and each of the health
service providers absolutely focused on this issue. We now also have the Public
Sector Commissioner looking into the matter to ensure that we have the systems
and the culture in place to protect taxpayers' funds.
member for Forrestfield, I welcome the students from Darling Range Sports
College here today. It is good to have them with us.
(1)–(2) I
do not accept the assertion or the request proposed by the AMA. As the member
well knows, we have taken a range of deliberate and purposeful steps to ensure
that we are on top of this issue. That has ranged from me requesting from the
system manager, the director general of Health, what each of the health service
providers have put in place since they came into being in June 2016 and what
safeguards are in place to ensure that these things do not happen again. In
addition to that, as the house knows, we have asked the Public Sector
Commissioner to do an inquiry into the procurement arrangements to ensure that
she is satisfied that we have all the necessary systems in place to ensure that
we have procurement and other issues within the department under control. Of
course, it is important that we do that, because I, like everyone else, was
disturbed to see the level of corruption uncovered by the Corruption and Crime
Commission in relation to the work at North Metropolitan Health Service. It was
disappointing and disturbing. We think it is important to get on top of these
issues, which is the reason that we have taken the steps. These will be
important steps to ensure that we are on top of it, we have the systems in
place and we have the culture in place. What I will do is to promise to take
action. We will see from these steps just how seriously we take this.
This stands in stark contrast to when
the Liberal Party was in office, when Hon Kim Hames was presented with a report
from the CCC. That was about some corruption that took place in the south
metropolitan part of the system. In June 2014 he said —
We think we are doing a pretty good
job, to be honest, in the way we manage procurement in this state.
This is in June 2014, when we were at
the height of the activities that were going on at that time. Clearly, Hon Kim
Hames thought the former government was doing the job, but just as we see with
this other mob when it is in government, they are like the Betty Crockers of
government—they are in the set and forget phase. They made assurances
and we just had to assume that they would look after these things. This was
during the time, which the CCC has now pointed out, when the corruption was at
its highest. Yet here we had the Minister for Health in the previous government
providing assurances that it was not going to happen again. He said —
� it is absolutely critical that we
have good systems in place to make sure that what happened under a Labor
government's watch does not happen under ours.
As we all now know, the very opposite
was taking place; that is, the former government did not learn the lessons from
that particular case, it did not put the measures in place, it did not
investigate properly and it did not get on top of it. We will; we will take
care of this issue, because we have the department and each of the health
service providers absolutely focused on this issue. We now also have the Public
Sector Commissioner looking into the matter to ensure that we have the systems
and the culture in place to protect taxpayers' funds.
Explore WA Government Data
Search the full archive in the free dashboard, or query programmatically via API.
Explore more
Government Gazette
Appointments, regulatory notices, planning changes.
Hansard
Debates, questions, speeches and sentiment.
Tabled Papers
Reports and documents tabled in Parliament.
Committees
Committee profiles and recent reports.
Regulations
Subsidiary legislation with filters and summaries.
Bills
Proposed laws and parliamentary progress.
Acts
Current WA legislation and summaries.
Explanatory Memoranda
Bills with EMs (text/PDF) available.
Members
MP profiles, party breakdown and rankings.
Pollie Rankings
Data-driven rankings across 19 categories.
Amendment Chains
Track how schemes and regulations evolve over time.