Page 1016 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 1990
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MR SPEAKER: It is on the daily program, Mr Berry, not on the notice paper.
Ms Follett: I rise on a point of order, Mr Speaker. Standing order 118 requires that the answers be concise and that they do not debate the subject to which the question refers. I think Mr Humphries is entering into debate and is being anything but precise.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you. Please get to the point, Mr Humphries.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, the question I was asked was whether Mr Berry's comments accurately reflected the Government's proposal to redevelop the ACT hospitals. The fact is that, unlike Mr Berry's comments, the ACT Government's proposals are not a demolition of the comprehensive public health system of the ACT. They are a promotion of it, they are an enhancement of it, they are an improvement on it. We need to develop comprehensively our hospital system and I believe that the confidence we have shown in it will be reflected in an improved and enhanced system. Certainly it is not helped at all by the negative comments of the Opposition.
Hospitals - Costs
MR BERRY: My question is directed, not to the Chief Minister, but to a Minister who, I am sure, unlike the Chief Minister, will have a lot of information in his head. Would the Minister for Health tell us the projected capital recurrent costs of the new services outlined in Mr Humphries' statement yesterday? These services include, an ACT birth centre, a 24-hour mental health crisis centre, convalescent beds, a hospice and a 24-hour childcare centre. Is the Minister aware of costings available to the Government, which show that he is out by $40m.
MR HUMPHRIES: Contrary to Mr Berry's expectations, I do not carry all those figures around in my head. I can give him some indications and those that I cannot accurately convey now, I can supply later. It is very difficult to separate particular features of a hospital redevelopment program from the whole program, and Mr Berry had access to exactly the same figures and resources in terms of costings that I have access to. I am very surprised and amazed to hear that he is now questioning the accuracy of those figures because, in effect, that is the same advice he acted upon. In fact, it is the same advice on which he told the Assembly that he would bring forward a program costing $210m, because exactly the same figures were the basis of my announcements in the Assembly yesterday.
I can indicate very clearly the difference between his proposal and mine. It is approximately $50m in capital cost and $8.5m per annum from now to whenever in recurrent
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