Page 4573 - Week 16 - Tuesday, 27 November 1990
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Ms Follett: Ask your Minister.
MR KAINE: You asked me the question. I do not know how many beds would be required in the ACT for convalescent purposes, for example. I do not think anybody could argue that you should not provide convalescent care because none exists at the moment. It is sadly needed because people convalescing presently have to convalesce in our hospitals, which is a very high cost solution to the matter. In my view, it would be much better to identify what the total need for convalescent care is and use the Royal Canberra site partly to fill that gap, and take those people out of our major hospitals where the costs are high because they are designed to provide high level nursing and medical care.
Mr Berry: But you said "a community hospital".
MR KAINE: If you want to play with semantics, Mr Berry, we will go outside and we will play with semantics.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR KAINE: We will play with semantics as long as you like and we will take up as much of your question time as you care to indulge in, in a debate between you and me about words. I am quite happy with that, but the point that I made then and the point that I repeat is that, according to the front page of the Canberra Times this morning, Ms Follett says that the public servants are driving us in terms of our hospital restructuring. I say that is not so, because in September last year I outlined a potential use for the Royal Canberra Hospital site. When I was not in government, when I was not being driven by public servants, when I had no access to public servants, I outlined what we would do when we got into government. In fact, I criticised Rosemary Follett for not doing it last year when she should have faced up to it. If Mr Berry had given her the correct advice, which he was incapable of doing because he did not understand the problem, they would have done it last year. But, of course, they did not want to face up to the major problems. They nibbled around the edges. Mr Berry was so panicky that he could not figure out what to do with his $7m overspend, let alone restructuring the hospitals. So I refute entirely the proposition that we are being driven by the public service on this.
I think I have made my point, and I think that Ms Follett has egg on her face, as very often is the case. We are doing exactly what I outlined then as a potential course of action. You can call it what you like. I call it a health related facility. You can call it a community hospital if you like.
Ms Follett: No, you called it that.
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