Page 2654 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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Mr Kaine: You have not changed anything, as far as I can see.
MR BERRY: If you wait, the speech goes on and on. We have inherited many problems in our public health system. We have inherited problems with the health budget - a $17.3m blow-out in the Alliance's health budget. The Labor Government, of course, is committed to containing both capital and recurrent costs. There are deficiencies in the coverage of the present system and many competing demands for additional services. We recognise that opportunities presented for savings in the future might give scope to redress some of these deficiencies; but, in the meantime, we have to live within our budget.
Like many other Canberrans, I would have liked to see a community hospital retained at Acton. However, the previous Alliance Government has committed all available funds to the principal hospital, and the fast-tracking of the overall hospital redevelopment program has put this Government in the position of deciding not whether to retain a community hospital at Acton but whether to reopen a hospital there. Let us face it, they set out to sabotage the Royal Canberra Hospital, to see it closed before the next election, to take us past the point of no return, no matter what the cost. I think that is the key to what occurred during the period of the Alliance Government.
Our independent review has shown that the capital cost of reopening a community hospital at Acton is now more than $30m. The review shows that the cost of providing comparable services at Calvary Hospital is considerably less and, in any event, that money is already committed. There are also recurrent cost advantages in using to their full capacity the Woden Valley Hospital and the Calvary public hospital, which the Federal Government provided decades in advance of demand. The review shows that the recurrent cost of running and reopening a community hospital and spreading services between Woden, Acton and Calvary would now be at least $16m a year.
One of the great scourges of the Alliance Government was the way it set about fast-tracking the closure of Royal Canberra Hospital. The Government committed massive funds to that outrageous act of closure. They were funds that the community could ill afford, and it was a gross political act. At no stage did the Labor Party promise to reopen a community hospital at Acton. I have outlined the costs of undoing what has already been done and what is committed. We have always said that our preferred position was to stand by our original promise, but the conservatives opposite clearly set out to reverse that. We do not have to test our memories too much to recall that the Residents Rally were right behind us on that proposal in 1989, as were the then No Self Government members.
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