Page 4534 - Week 15 - Thursday, 22 November 1990
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MR BERRY: You are reducing access to public beds, Minister Duby.
Mr Duby: We are increasing public beds.
MR BERRY: Look, you do not seem to understand all of this. The other night, when you said that the community health centre at Melba would not close, you were not able to say that that was the Government position. I think it was something like the election campaign you ran; it was just get on the crest of a popular wave and cruise in. You will just cruise in. But now the Minister has got in the way.
Mr Duby: It took the wind out of your sails.
MR SPEAKER: Order, members!
MR BERRY: He has taken the wind out of your sails. He has said, "Oh no, Craig Duby has got the dump".
MR SPEAKER: Order, members! Mr Berry, you are out of time.
MR HUMPHRIES (Minister for Health, Education and the Arts) (4.59): I really do not know who Mr Berry thinks he is impressing with these sorts of debates. Nobody is listening to this drivel after the first 15 or 20 times he repeats it. The gallery, for the most part, is pretty empty. Everyone has heard it all before ad nauseam. I really wonder what he thinks he is achieving by mouthing those stupid arguments one more time. But, for the sake of the record, one more time I will go through the reasons why Mr Berry is comprehensively wrong.
He says: how do I know that demand for private hospital beds exists in the ACT? First of all, I have to reassert the view that if people insure for something there is a fair expectation that they actually want to do what they have insured for.
Mr Moore: Why are they not using more at Calvary?
MR HUMPHRIES: Because Calvary has not got them. There are a number of services - - -
Mr Berry: But there are plenty. There have been 60 empty beds up there for years.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker - - -
Mr Duby: It is like saying that people buy movie tickets because they do not want to go to the movies.
MR HUMPHRIES: That is right.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Duby, please!
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