Page 2093 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 28 May 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Speaker, we know that at the same time that those opposite claim that we are blowing money, that we are spending money hand over fist, Mr Berry, for most of the last 18 months, has also claimed that we are winding back hospital services. How can we be winding back hospital services and yet spending more providing hospital services? It is not possible.
The fact of life is that we are not winding back hospital services. We are ploughing money into hospital services. We are spending $166m on hospital services, to provide a higher quality of hospital service in the ACT. We are improving hospital services. That is what we are doing in the ACT. We are spending money on health, because it needs to be spent in that area. Yet we get the spurious claim coming from those opposite that we are, in fact, somehow winding back hospital services. What a joke!
Mr Speaker, the Opposition is clearly desperate to drag the hospital redevelopment process into all of this. It is desperate to make sure, in some way, that the process of hospital redevelopment is somehow dragged into the mud; that it is somehow shown to be falling short. To do that, they have resorted to a particularly low tactic in the last few weeks, and that tactic has been to try to compare the $154m plus add-ons that this Government is spending in the health area with the $210m that the Opposition promised to spend to refurbish the hospital system when it was in government.
Of course, that comparison is utterly false. It is utterly unsustainable and utterly false, because what they are comparing is the cost of refurbishment of the hospital system as we are putting it forward, plus the add-ons that we are adding onto that process - the add-ons like a hospice, which was not part of Labor's proposal, plus a birthing centre, which was not part of Labor's proposal, plus a convalescent unit, which was not part of Labor's proposal, plus child-care centres, which were not part of Labor's proposal.
All those things have been added on by this Government. Yet you are comparing our refurbishment program, plus our add-ons, with your basic hospital program. That is a false comparison, because if it costs us, for argument's sake, let us say, $35m, to provide those things to the people of Canberra - a hospice, a birthing centre, child-care centres, a convalescent unit, a relocated and more appropriate QEII home for mothers and babies, et cetera - then it would have cost you $35m as well. Therefore, your $210m would have become something like $245m. That is the fact. Mr Berry is quietly shuffling his papers with his head down. He knows that this is true, but he does not have the guts to admit it. He would not have the guts to stand up here and admit it.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .