Page 4312 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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Clearly, the Canberra Times was satisfied on that point, but it appears that Mr Moore is holding out. There appears to be some difference of view between him and the Canberra Times.
To touch on other things that were raised in the debate, Mr Connolly made an interesting reference to the poor economics inherent in the Government,s decision on the hospital redevelopment project. Showing that he has a rather poor command of figures, he said that spending $158m to achieve an $8m saving was a poor investment, that if one went to the Commonwealth Bank and invested the money one could achieve a rather better rate of return and that it would be a much better use of that money. I must correct the figures. It is $154m in 1989 dollars, and the saving is $8.5m on a similar basis.
Mr Connolly: I think the point still stands.
MR HUMPHRIES: Maybe so. But that ignores a number of reasons for spending that money, quite apart from making a saving - in particular, establishing a principal hospital in the ACT. It will improve significantly the quality of health care in the ACT, as recommended by the Kearney report which Mr Berry accepted, which is why he decided to establish a principal hospital. That money would have to be spent anyway because of the poor quality of the existing Royal Canberra Hospital North site.
Putting that to one side, I ask Mr Connolly: if he finds the investment of $158m to produce an $8m return a poor investment, what would he say about investing $210m to receive a $5m return? Presumably he would say that it is an even poorer financial decision. Yet that is the decision made by his colleague Mr Wayne Berry. That was a decision that Mr Berry made in government - to spend $210m to achieve a saving of $5m. If it made poor sense in the case of our decision, Mr Speaker, how much poorer sense did it make in the case of Mr Berry's decision?
Other comments have been made by Mr Connolly in respect of the health program. At the beginning of his remarks about health programs he said that the argument that there is a demand for a second private hospital in Canberra has not been demonstrated. I want to remind Mr Connolly of the development of the idea of having more private hospital beds in the ACT. It is not an idea that originated from this Government. In 1986, the Commonwealth Labor Government approved a threefold increase - from 91 to 270 - in private hospital beds in the ACT. This dastardly Alliance Government, which is hell-bent on privatising health services in the ACT, is increasing private hospital beds in the ACT from that figure of 270 to a grand total of 300 - an extra 30 beds!
Mr Berry: That is a distortion.
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