Page 2169 - Week 07 - Thursday, 6 June 1991
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This Government has failed to show how the hospitals redevelopment could be in the interests of the community. It has presided over a 60 per cent blow-out in hospital waiting lists. It has cut the number of public hospital beds. It has presided over an ambulance service so understaffed that sick and injured people must wait for up to three-quarters of an hour for an ambulance. Mr Kaine, I ask you: Is this the government that you said in 1989 we could afford? I remind members of Mr Kaine's election slogan in 1989, "government you can afford".
Much of the devastation caused to the Canberra community by this Liberal Government has been done in the name of financial responsibility. Mr Kaine vainly attempts to project the Greiner image of supposed responsible management. But the Liberals' appalling mismanagement of the hospitals, the schools and the commercial leases issues gives the lie to this claim.
It was clear from the very start that the school closure decision was taken not only against the wishes of the community but also in the absence of financial facts. Faced with questions in the Assembly, Mr Humphries and Mr Kaine stumbled along for months either failing to answer, giving contradictory estimates or resorting to bluster. The fact that Yarralumla parents were able to do better than the first effort of Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries says it all. This Assembly should have no confidence in a government which had to wait for the Opposition and community groups to point out some of the added costs outside the education system. Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries have not, so far, ventured even an opinion on the full costs of those school closures.
This so-called "government you can afford" is also responsible for a hospitals recurrent budget and a redevelopment program at Woden which are both out of control. It was apparent in 1989 that there were problems with the management of the hospitals recurrent budget. My Government at that time initiated the Treasury report which Mr Kaine received in December 1989. That report, 18 months ago, highlighted some of the problems which have continued to plague the management of hospital finances. But Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries failed to act. They failed to act when they received the report and they have failed to act appropriately ever since.
The handling of this issue by Mr Kaine and Mr Humphries brings a new meaning to the term "ministerial responsibility". The repeated blow-outs in the hospitals budget have become a running joke around this town. First it was $3m, then $10m; and now Mr Humphries acknowledges that he must find $17m to make up the shortfall. All along Mr Humphries has been unable to explain the blow-outs. All along he has denied our charges that he failed to act. All along he said that he was in control. And all along Mr Kaine has said that he has full confidence in Mr Humphries.
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