Page 749 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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The simple fact is that this Alliance Government has acted very responsibly in its handling of the health system, particularly the Minister responsible, Mr Humphries. The ACT has been faced with a significant budgetary challenge, and decisive and radical steps are required if we are to meet this challenge. Education and health account for over half the ACT's annual expenditure, and it is obvious that they cannot be quarantined from the mainstream of budget considerations.
The first national comparison of hospitals in 1988 identified ACT hospitals as the most expensive to operate in Australia, even though utilisation rates were the lowest. The Grants Commission recognised that running three major public hospitals contributed to this inefficiency. Over many years the Commonwealth Government has failed to meet its responsibilities in the ACT public hospital system, which is run-down and in need of substantial restructuring and upgrading - something which the Labor Opposition when in power failed to recognise.
The Government has pressed the Commonwealth to provide funding for our public hospital system here in the ACT and there has not, of course, been a useful response. Instead of carping at Mr Humphries' actions, I think those opposite should be using their supposed close links with our Federal Labor Government perhaps to get some appropriate funding from that organisation to assist in upgrading the run-down system that we have inherited.
It should be pointed out, Mr Deputy Speaker, that an earlier Labor proposal to maintain three hospitals, with Royal Canberra on its current site at around 250 beds and Calvary at up to 150 beds, involved construction costs at least $50m more than this Government's plan, and would have cost at least $3.5m per annum more to operate. So much for Mr Berry being a financially responsible Minister for Health. This huge additional cost considerably outweighed any possible service advantage and was well beyond what the ACT community could afford.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the $166m-odd set aside for the Government's redevelopment program is having a massive impact on the ACT budget, and I think it should be pointed out that, contrary to the statements made opposite, the redevelopment program is on target. There is no blow-out whatsoever in that development, and I think that demonstrates - - -
Mr Berry: Will you resign if that is proved to be incorrect?
MR DUBY: I do not need to resign, because it cannot be proved to be incorrect.
The simple fact is that that redevelopment program is on target and our undertaking, I think, demonstrates the Government's strong commitment to the development of a
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