Page 2573 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 8 August 1990
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Hospital Bill. What we set out to do is to prevent the closure of that hospital and ensure that the community is aware that this Government is tearing the heart out of our health system. It is privatising health in the Territory, it is doubling the number of - - -
Mr Collaery: Where is the evidence?
MR BERRY: Here is the evidence, listen. This Government is doubling the number of private hospital beds in the Territory; doubling the number of private hospitals in the Territory.
Mr Jensen: I rise on a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. I thought we were talking about the suspension of standing orders.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: We are - in relation to these two Bills.
MR BERRY: The Government has doubled the number of private hospitals. It seeks to double the number of private hospital beds yet in the next 10 years it seeks to increase the number of public beds in the Territory by only 70. That does not take - - -
Mr Kaine: He is debating the issue.
MR BERRY: Because you are handing hospital care over to the private sector, that is why.
Mr Jensen: I rise to a point of order, Mr Acting Speaker. Mr Berry is debating the issue.
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Yes, all right. Mr Berry, please stick to the point. You should not be debating the substantive issue of the closure of the hospital.
MR BERRY: I am explaining the reasons why we need to suspend standing orders and have support for - - -
MR ACTING SPEAKER: Yes, all right. But please just continue to relate to that then.
MR BERRY: Indeed, Mr Acting Speaker; I am relating that to the importance of the Royal Canberra Hospital Bill because of the deeply-held feelings in the community that the hospital should not close. Forty-one thousand people have told you that they do not want it to close.
Mr Kaine: And all four of them who were outside the Assembly a little while ago agreed with you - all four of them!
MR BERRY: Forty-one thousand people. You listen to the executive of the Liberal Party, the big business in this Territory - about three of them - and they tell you how to run your heart.
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