Page 2082 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
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Mr Duby: So, we acknowledge savings.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Duby!
MR BERRY: That is about the third time. I am getting a little bit tired of this and I think it is about time, Mr Speaker, that you pulled him into gear, or asked him to go upstairs and have a little rest. He does not seem to be able to cope with the tension here.
What it boils down to, Mr Speaker, is that the Government has inadequately looked after our hospital system, and it will pay the price. It is going to pay the price. It does not like it very much, and it does not like having it pushed down its throat; but the fact of the matter is that it will be. The community will not forget what it has done to our hospital system. Those 1,500 people who are waiting for hospital beds in our hospital system know who is responsible - Chief Minister Trevor Kaine and Health Minister Humphries.
Mr Kaine: The same 1,500 who were waiting when you were the Minister.
MR BERRY: Chief Minister Kaine says that it is the same 1,500 who were waiting for a bed while the Labor Government was in office. He has it wrong again, because there were about 900 waiting in those days, Mr Kaine. There has been a 60 per cent blow-out since you set Gary Humphries onto our hospital system. It has got worse and it is getting worse. Labor's record is clean. What Labor set out to do was to put in place a hospital system to suit the needs of the people, not to suit any privatisation ideology. It was about a hospital system to suit the needs of the people and that was affordable and accessible; not a hospital system where budgets were out of control, where a Minister did not know what was going on within his system, where there was a Minister who would not listen to the people who were advising him on the problems in his hospital system.
A good way to measure the adequacy of the hospital system, Mr Speaker, is by the waiting list. That is why this Government does not want to hear about waiting lists any more, and that is why it wants to talk about other things. The waiting list is a good way to measure how your hospital system is performing. In 1989 there were about 900 people; on today's lists there are about 60 per cent more. That is how the Government is performing. It is not performing at all. It does not like the truth. That is why it gets edgy.
The figures that I have demonstrated here this evening are an indictment on this Government's performance in hospital services. It cannot keep up with demand and the Minister has now conceded this. Of course, he has conceded because he has not enough money to run his hospital system. His budget has blown out and he still cannot provide services.
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