Page 2803 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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this framework. The study does not address in detail costings for any university hospital concept, and I think that was a serious failure in the terms of reference which were set.
Another issue that needs to be addressed closely in discussion of this issue, particularly in the light of the Government's attitude to cutting costs in the public hospitals area, is the costs. This is a Government that takes great pride in announcing that it will rip the internals out of our public hospital system to provide a bigger chunk of public hospital beds to the private sector and, in so doing, it will lay a cost on the people of Canberra of, according to its figures, about $154m - but the real cost will be closer to $200m. The Government squirms about that, and it moves from one position to another. The latest, I should add, is that it will be less than the $154m that was announced in the past, and this suggests to me that the Government is going to cut more costs if it is going to try to stick with that figure. So the people of Canberra can expect less service delivery in the public hospital system.
But the costings provided are totally inadequate, and obviously they have not been assessed by anyone with expertise in the costs associated with medical schools. It was a quick-fix, in my estimation, and the Government should take account of that as it moves to consider the matter further. The University of Canberra has found that the figure of $1m per annum is underestimated by a factor of six to eight. The costs for its proposal will be $6m to $8m per annum without any capital undertaking - a significant cost for the people of Canberra. All of those issues need to be very carefully addressed. We have a Government that is tearing the heart out of this city in the area of education, and it is tearing the innards out of our hospital system, and it is now looking at a proposal which might cost $8m per annum in relation to the delivery of a university hospital concept.
Whether that is needed or not has to be assessed very closely. But the cost to the community also has to be assessed very closely, and all of the figures have to be made available - not like Mr Humphries with the education and hospital costs so far. He has wrapped them up in a blanket and tucked them away somewhere saying that there will be no announcements in relation to those because they are budget matters. The people of the ACT need to assess what this Government is doing in terms of the financial impact on the ACT. It really comes back to the question of who pays. Well, the people of Canberra pay. That is who pays and, of course - - -
Mr Humphries: Who benefits?
MR BERRY: Of course the people of Canberra benefit, but how do they pay from a Liberal Party philosophical point of view? How they pay is by the transfer of public sector services into the private sector.
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