Page 2639 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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MR BERRY: What, in effect, will happen, Mr Speaker, as the responsible Labor Government moves to look after our public hospital system, is that we will decide what the appropriate balance of public and private beds is in the ACT. We will decide - - -
Mr Humphries: That is not the question. How many beds in total?
MR BERRY: I will answer it the way I want to answer it. We will decide what the approved number of hospital beds will be. Impatient though the former Minister is, he has to accept that what he planned to do was to squeeze the public hospital system and reduce the number of services provided, in order that it would be attractive for somebody to build a private hospital in the Australian Capital Territory. Try as he could, he was unable to gain the sort of interest that would be necessary to build a private hospital. For the former Minister to now get up and say that he was going to provide an extra 150 beds is absolute rubbish.
Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. My question was: How many hospital beds, public and private, will there be by the year 2000? I think Mr Berry has so far said not one word touching on that subject in the answer to this question, and he is taking up valuable question time.
MR SPEAKER: Would you draw your answer to a conclusion on the basis of the question asked, please, Mr Berry.
MR BERRY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I do not believe that Mr Humphries was capable of providing an extra 150 beds in the private sector, and he is going to have to squirm a little bit while I answer this question the way I want to answer it. I can tell you this much: As far as this Government is concerned, bed members will not be made up of those that might have been approved by Mr Humphries in a private hospital.
MR HUMPHRIES: I ask a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Does the Minister feel any sense of shame that he rises in this place unable to answer a basic question about an important statement he is making today; namely, how many hospital beds will his plan produce for the ACT within nine years?
MR BERRY: There is no sense of shame felt by this Minister. Mr Humphries is unable to cope with the fact that he was the one that undid, or attempted to undo, the provision of public hospital services in the Australian Capital Territory. He knows that the plan for public hospital beds in the ACT that he originally adopted was for about 700 in the Woden Valley Hospital and about 300 in the Calvary Hospital system. He also knows that the provision of an extra private hospital in the ACT would require the public sector to be squeezed in order for it to be made viable. He does not like that response.
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