Page 3814 - Week 13 - Thursday, 18 October 1990
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proceed with the restructuring of health services in the ACT. In fact the preferred one from that committee was the very course of action which this Government has now taken up and adopted and is putting into practice.
That expert committee, upon which Mr Berry relied to a large degree - not entirely, but to a large degree - accepted and made implicit in its decision that it was possible to retain a high quality health service in Canberra through the closure of the Royal Canberra Hospital. That was the expert advice that Mr Berry received. Yet he says now that this Government's following of that path amounts to the destruction of the public hospital system. But he has not explained how.
What is it that we have changed from the recommendations of the steering committee in August of last year that has transmogrified this process from one of enhancing the quality of public health services in the ACT to one of destroying public health services in the ACT? That has not been explained. I hope Mr Berry takes the trouble at some point to explain what it is that has happened in that regard.
Mr Berry also makes reference in his comments to the waiting list problem. He said:
The plan is to wind back the number of public hospital beds, in percentage terms, which are available to the people of the ACT.
Here Mr Berry has made a rather dramatic shift of emphasis because up until now he has not been saying that. Mr Berry has been saying that we are going to reduce in real terms, reduce in real numbers, the number of public hospital beds in the ACT. That is not true, it never has been true, and Mr Berry clearly does not seem to understand that point. He made a better statement in his remarks on Tuesday and I will repeat them once more for his benefit. What he said on Tuesday, at least to this point in his comments, was this:
The plan is to wind back the number of public hospital beds, in percentage terms ...
That is what you said, Mr Berry - "in percentage terms". It was a rare glimmer of honesty in the remarks that you have made in this whole debate. It was rare and it was not repeated. That in fact is what has happened. There is one point that needs to be made here, Mr Speaker. It is true; there is a plan to wind back the number of public hospital beds as a percentage of the total number of beds in the ACT. And do you know whose plan that is, Mr Speaker?
Mr Berry: It is yours.
MR SPEAKER: No, I do not.
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