Page 4313 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 20 November 1990
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MR HUMPHRIES: It is not a distortion; it is a fact. It is an extra 30 beds, Mr Speaker. Big deal! All the indicators point to a need for those additional beds. That need is to be met by this Government, in line with standards and levels of private bed use which apply elsewhere in this country and which the ACT is below at present - a situation which this Government is intent on ensuring is rectified. I believe that it will enhance the quality of health care available to people, particularly those people who presently have a limited choice with private health insurance in the ACT.
MR SPEAKER: Your time has expired, Mr Humphries.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (9.48): Mr Speaker, like other speakers before me, I compliment the Estimates Committee and recognise the vital role that it plays in the budgetary process of the ACT Government. It is a very time consuming and hard task. I guess it is a necessary one, of which the Government is not afraid in any way. Indeed, given the number of hours of public interview and interrogation of Ministers and members of the public service, in a lot of ways I am quite surprised, Mr Speaker, that the recommendations of the committee seem to refer to mere matters of format that future estimates committees would like to see. They refer to the way in which they would like to have information presented to them.
I am very pleased to note that no areas within my portfolios, namely finance and urban services, have been singled out for particular mention. It would appear that the committee is satisfied with the general level of expenditure and the way in which those moneys have been spent by my department. For that I am grateful. I believe that my department and the areas within my portfolio responsibilities spend their money responsibly and well.
However, there is one thing that does, frankly, interest me, and that is the way in which certain members of the Opposition, particularly Mr Moore - I notice also, with dismay, the comments made by Mr Connolly this evening - seem to have an absolutely sordid fascination with travel expenditure that has been expended by this Government in attending quite legitimate and worthwhile conferences and meetings in various parts of Australia and, in the case of Mr Collaery and me, in New Zealand. As was explained to the committee by me, and I am sure by the other Ministers, it represented the first time the ACT Government had been asked to participate fully in its own right at a conference of any kind. In other words, it was the time when the ACT Government, as such, was to be admitted to various consultative forums as a full member, and I think it is most appropriate that Ministers should attend.
Much has been made of the comparison between the expenditure of $7,000 by the previous Government and - there is no doubt about it - the greater expenditure on travel which Ministers have expended in relation to our
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