Page 736 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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MR HUMPHRIES: A blowtorch with the intensity of weak sunlight. When it gets a bit hotter I will start to squirm; but at the moment I am quite comfortable, thank you very much. Mr Berry said, and I am quoting from him in Hansard on 14 November 1989:
Certainly the blow-out, if we can use that rather emotive term -
he has been very fond of that rather emotive term "blow-out" in the last few days -
about cost overruns, has been the subject of some media reporting recently. The issue was brought to the attention of the Government by the interim hospitals board.
So much for the claim that the Follett Government rooted out this matter and discovered it for themselves. It was brought to the attention of the Government by the interim hospitals board. That is the same board that you wanted to get rid of, the same board that you could not abide.
What did Ms Follett - who was the Chief Minister in the same government - say not long afterwards on this question of how this particular problem had arisen? She had a rather different tack to take to Mr Berry at that time. I would say that, in fact, she rather contradicted him. She said on the next day, 15 November:
The Government cannot continue to allow hospitals to be a large and uncontrollable drain on the Territory's resources.
Does that sound familiar? She continued:
It is because of that responsible financial approach that the Government has sought continual monitoring of the health budget, and it is our vigilance in that matter that has brought about the current focus on budgetary issues.
She was saying that the continual monitoring of the health budget revealed the budget problem that Mr Berry had revealed to the Assembly; but Mr Berry is saying that the matter was brought to his attention by the interim hospitals board. Which of them was telling the truth? Clearly, they could not both be telling the truth. One or other of them was not telling the truth to the Assembly. On the second day they were ducking for cover; they were taking every bit of cover they could get.
Of course, we know what happened there. Mr Berry started to blame the doctors' unions, as he put it. He started to blame the hospital board. He wanted to get rid of the hospital board. He blamed the Opposition. He said that they should not have raised this sensitive issue, that it should have been left to the Government to handle. That is
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