Page 5164 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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is precisely the point. It is quite conceivable for other services to be provided by, for example, other government agencies. There is absolutely no reason for that not to occur.
Mr Berry: Here we go; a hidden agenda.
MR HUMPHRIES: And what hidden agenda could possibly be present in having a different government agency look after a particular service is beyond me.
For example, to go back to part (vii) of the amendment, I did not say that we could dispense with research and advisory services; I referred only to research services. Mr Berry obviously was not listening. But, if a school of medicine were established in the ACT, it is conceivable that all the research going on in our hospitals would in fact be a part of the school of medicine, which of course would be part of the university to which that school was attached, not part of the ACT Board of Health. That is a very good reason not to prescribe that the Board of Health should be conducting research - an excellent reason not to do that.
Finally, I will deal with Mr Moore's point about marginalisation. I think he was talking about marginalising private health insurers into somewhere else. He did say that in an interjection, I think, during the Chief Minister's remarks. Mr Moore does not seem to be concerned at the fact that people who can afford to be elsewhere and who can afford to pay for their own health needs - because they have paid for it already - are occupying beds and consuming resources in a system where those resources are scarce. He is not concerned about that.
He says, "Come one, come all. Come into the public hospital system. We do not care how much strain that puts on the system. We will just provide whatever is required to provide those services in that system". That is an unrealistic view. It is a stupid view. It cannot be sustained, and we, as responsible managers of that public health system, have to make sure that we emphasise the need to provide those services for people who cannot afford them, people who do need public hospital services. Those people are going to be serviced by the changes that this Government is making. He also said, apparently afterwards, that we are somehow marginalising the public hospital system. If there are 1,000 beds staying in the public hospital system, all I can say is that it must be a pretty big margin.
MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, under standing order 46, I think - - -
MR SPEAKER: Yes, under standing order 46, please proceed, Mr Berry.
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