Page 2805 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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Mr Duby: I know a sure thing - a sure loser.
MR BERRY: Now, let us not get into the discussion about use by dates. The fact of the matter is that this Government is about privatising health services. We have a Minister here who said that the pace for the education system should be set by the private sector, and that is the philosophical line that will be taken in relation to the provision of additional public sector services in the ACT. It will mean a real cut in services to the people of the ACT and a transfer of public sector services to the private sector. After all, where does the Liberal Party constituency lie? It lies in the private sector and it has to satisfy its constituency.
Mr Kaine: Well, it is everywhere, Wayne, everywhere.
MR BERRY: But it is getting to be a pretty small little package lately, Trevor. The issues that were not addressed in this inquiry were the real reasons for the lower standards of medical care in the ACT and the many options which could be available to improve those standards. There are no detailed costings, both in capital terms and recurrent terms, and no assessment of their impact on the ACT economy. It is the starting point for expenditure of a great deal of ACT money. The Government has to consider the impact of those sorts of expenditure levels.
There is a whole range of fallacies in all of the arguments that have been put. But the most important factor is that most of the people in the ACT were not consulted; nobody knew that this was going on. The large majority of workers in the ACT health system were not consulted.
Mr Humphries: I am sure they would have loved to have been discussing a university hospital.
MR BERRY: Well, you never ensured that they were asked.
Mr Collaery: He wants to say "non-consultation" because he has got a gallery. He is on his theme tonight. His theme is non-consultation.
MR BERRY: We do not need any patronising remarks from you, Bernard. Get back in your revolving door.
Mr Collaery: I am going to get back to my work.
Mr Kaine: You want to get back into your cage.
MR BERRY: When I lay the facts on the line here it makes the Chief Minister and all his cohorts twitch. They all get very twitchy because we lay it on the line.
Mr Kaine: You would not know a fact if you fell over one.
MR BERRY: The fact of the matter is that this Government gets twitchy when you talk about privatisation.
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