Page 3813 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The first comment of significance that Mr Berry makes is that there is a certain inevitability and irreversibility about the Government's decision. He said:
That decision, once it goes past the point of no return, I suspect, will be irreversible for any future government.
Now, that is very true, and it is interesting that that kind of comment echoes Mr Wood's comments on schools at various points - that the ALP, on return to government, would undo the Government's decision except where that was not practicable. It is interesting that there appears to be a certain perception, a certain underlying acceptance on the part of the ALP, that some of these decisions are not such utter disasters that they ought to be reversed no matter what the cost. There is an acceptance that there are some benefits flowing from some of these decisions, particularly in the case of the hospital system from the expenditure of $150m to $160m-odd, and that reversing those decisions is not necessarily in the best interests of the ACT Treasury or in the best interests of the public of the ACT. I suspect that there is a certain element of that in those remarks.
I do not think we will see any reversal of the decisions the Government has made on the hospital question. I do not think there will be any reversal of the decision on the question of corporatising Mitchell. That is an issue which the Opposition has not touched on and the decision on which is eminently reversible, no matter what the state of play; but my prediction is that that will not be reversed. That is my prediction. We will see what happens.
The Opposition, in Mr Berry's remarks, has gone on to talk about other things. They have described the objective of the changes in the public health system as being:
... to destroy, where possible, the delivery of public community services and, where possible, to enhance the control of those services by the private sector.
Mr Berry also goes on to say that high on the agenda of this Government is "the destruction of the public health system as a result of this Government's restructuring plan".
Now, Mr Berry has used this rhetoric very frequently, but he has not yet explained exactly what it is about this restructuring arrangement which has the effect of destroying the public hospital system. Those are very, very dramatic words, but he has not explained how that will occur. In particular, he has not explained how it will occur in the context of the recommendations made by the steering committee whose advice he accepted at about this time last year. That steering committee said that there were two particular methods whereby the Government might
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .