Page 741 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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the budgetary management of the health system; it has a $12m blow-out, overrun - call it what you like. That would be only one attack, if it was managing the health system. But, as Mr Berry says, it is not managing the health system. The waiting lists and the queues are now far greater than they were during the period of Labor administration; and the Royal Canberra Hospital is being demolished again.
We heard some comments in Mr Humphries' speech that it was the people's choice that Labor had to go because of this so-called crisis in the health system under Labor. Mr Jensen seems to agree with that. Of course, the people who make up this Government, this party that you rent by the hour, said in their policy:
The Royal Canberra Hospital will be retained under a Residents Rally administration. The funding of the ACT will take into account the years of neglect and failure to refurbish the hospital ... The advantages of the siting of the Royal Canberra Hospital in terms of rehabilitation and convalescence must not be lost in the narrow financial discussion.
How long did that promise last when this accord document was signed?
We learn today that the Royal Canberra Hospital has ceased to exist and it will be replaced with some nursing homes and perhaps other health facilities. We will wait and hold our judgment on that and believe it when we see it. As I said, no-one can have confidence in the ability of this Minister to administer the health portfolio. He is condemned, in his own words. All Mr Berry really had to do - although he went much further than that - to condemn Mr Humphries was do a scissors and paste job on Mr Humphries' speeches in the latter period of 1989. All that is necessary to condemn Mr Humphries is his own words, where he thundered loud and long about problems in administering the health budget. He held himself out as some sort of model of financial propriety and perhaps achieved, in the early period of this Government, some credibility in that area.
Mr Humphries has worked assiduously in cultivating an image that he is a sound manager. Indeed, to some members of the community he has been working hard enough for people to think, "Well, perhaps, we do not agree with his policies; we do not agree with his closing of schools and hospitals; but he is competent to do the job". Any Minister whose budget is in this state cannot be said to be competent to do the job.
Today we have many excuses. The Minister says, "It happens all the time, $12m, $15m; it happens all the time". He says, "Not a problem". That is not what he said in the last two weeks of sittings. The Opposition asked twice in
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