Page 5119 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 12 December 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Party appears very quickly. Witness the vandalism and the attack on our schools and hospitals systems and our community health service and so on. And let us not forget the attack on the people of the ACT, because clearly they will have less disposable income under this Government than they had when Labor was in office. That is relevant, Mr Speaker - - -
Mr Humphries: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Mr Berry asserts that this is relevant, but I fail to see how talking about schools, talking about health centres, et cetera, attacks on the Government, the Liberal Party persona, et cetera, are relevant to the establishment of a Board of Health. I ask him to get to the point.
MR SPEAKER: Your point of order is upheld. Mr Berry, please remain relevant.
MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, I do not wish to draw an imputation in relation to yourself; but what Mr Humphries said then is an indication of how stupid the Government's approach is to the delivery of hospital services because, after all, I would think that the issue of consultation on a range of issues has a lot to do with its general approach to this Health Services Bill. I refer, Mr Speaker, to the absence of any consultative model in the legislative sense in this Bill. I think that is an absolute disgrace and the Government will, of course, suffer as a consequence of that.
In contrast, Labor engineered a highly consultative model which would have influenced the policies of a Labor Government on hospital matters. That is not something that the Liberal Party would want to do, because it is not in keeping with its image. It is not something that Mr Duby would agree with, because by all accounts to date it might even be said that Mr Duby would have difficulty spelling "consultation" because he seems to have struck it from his vocabulary. The Residents Rally, which is so keen to turn its back on all of its policies, has also forgotten about the issue of consultation and has not seen the need to do anything in terms of the model proposed in this legislation.
Mr Speaker, there are other areas that have not been dealt with in the legislation which I will deal with when the Bill comes to the detail stage. They include the absence of a description of the services which will be provided in the hospital system. I think that is a very important and necessary description, and it has been left out of the legislation. I do not know whether it has been left out by accident or by intent. It is very difficult to work out. But the fact of the matter is that it is not there.
Its approach to the board of management which, of course, is not supported by the Labor Opposition, is inadequate. It does not have a consultative model which advises the Minister to whom the board is responsible. Therefore, the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .