Page 3812 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
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It entails the upgrading of Canberra's best equipped and most modern public hospital facility, namely, Calvary Hospital, to a full 300-bed capacity, which capacity it has not enjoyed since it was established. And it entails the redeployment of a number of services to make the most efficient use of available resources and, in particular, to make the services provided to people in the ACT in this area more cost-effective.
In particular, I am drawing attention there to the corporatisation of the Mitchell Health Services Supply Centre whereby some of the commercial elements of that operation can provide a better cost return to the ACT. That facility in particular is at the present time an enormous drain on Territory finances and on the Territory budget when, in fact, it ought to be, under any reasonable scenario, a major producer of revenue for the Territory. That kind of inefficiency and waste is the very kind of thing that this Government is attacking and I believe we will see significant benefits flow in the course of time.
Now, with all those exciting developments one would expect there to be a certain enthusiasm in this chamber, and certainly out in the community, about the whole scope of the project. It is a matter of some regret to me, and I am sure to others who are working very hard to make these new arrangements successful, that that enthusiasm is not shared universally, most particularly by those on the opposite side of the chamber.
Mr Connolly: Enthusiastic opposition, in fact.
MR HUMPHRIES: But the important thing to remember, Mr Speaker, is that those on the opposite side of the chamber amount to a very large percentage of what Mr Connolly described as the enthusiastic opposition to the entire project. My impression on walking around the system, on speaking to people who work in the system, and others, is that many people in the system see significant benefits flowing from these arrangements and do see that a Government that spends $160m-odd on upgrading hospital facilities and services in the ACT must be going to achieve something of benefit out of that kind of expenditure.
The focus of this enthusiastic opposition, of course, has been Mr Berry, the Opposition spokesman on health. On Tuesday he spoke on this matter and, although I was not in the chamber, I obtained a transcript of his remarks. I see that, as usual, it is littered with the kinds of misleading statements which have characterised Mr Berry's contribution to this debate and I think it is incumbent on me to go through those statements and indicate where it is that Mr Berry errs. That will take a very long time to do comprehensively; but I will cover it in a shorter period of time, if possible.
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