Page 2817 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 14 August 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES: Well, I will move off the question of the ALP's hostility towards its old class enemies and move onto another area of hostility, which is hostility, particularly on the part of Mr Wayne Berry, towards the Interim Hospital Board, because he somehow deep down blames that board for the fact that somehow his handling of the hospital system prior to the change of government was in ruins or tatters. He somehow blames that hospital board for that.
Mr Berry: That is why I was going to replace them with a more efficient - - -
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, I think he needs to look at his own performance as Minister for Health before he starts to blame people who worked underneath him and tried to make the best of a desperate situation. It has been suggested in the course of interjections on the other side of the chamber that somehow Royal Canberra Hospital would be a good location for the clinical school. That is just rubbish. You must put the clinical school at the principal hospital. You simply must; there is no question about that. The clinical school must be at the principal hospital. Even Mr Berry was prepared to concede that Woden Valley was a better location for the principal hospital than is the Royal Canberra site. So, on his own logic, if Mr Berry had ever had the chance to remain as health Minister and embark on this project he would not have put it at Royal Canberra Hospital. He would certainly have put it out at Woden Valley.
Mr Berry: That is right, but I never criticised that element of it.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, you did, Mr Berry.
Mr Berry: No, I criticised the fact that you are going to close Royal Canberra Hospital.
MR HUMPHRIES: Well, if Mr Berry wants to backtrack now that is his entitlement, I suppose. The costs that Mr Berry and others have referred to in this debate are of very serious concern and should be carefully addressed. They will be weighed by this Government. We will weigh those costs against the benefits. If the benefits are important and significant enough, if they can be measured in terms that will provide an incentive for us to spend that money, we will spend that money. If it will not provide those benefits and they do not weigh up appropriately, we will not spend the money. It is as simple as that.
I think it is also important to note, as I think Dr Kinloch noted, that without a clinical school the ACT really does not bring back to the Territory some of the benefits of the John Curtin School of Medical Research. Much of the benefit of that research is not directly won or gained by the ACT. It flows to other medical establishments outside
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