Page 2669 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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I notice that you were magnanimous enough to suggest that if ever all of the available beds in the two hospitals were used up you would then consider the possibility of further supplementing the private hospital bed system. I suggest that it would be a little late. Once you have used up all the slack in the system it is a little late to start considering how you might provide more beds. You have to plan a little earlier than that. I know that the Labor Government is not strong on planning. They are not very interested in what might happen tomorrow or next year; they are only interested in the votes they can get today, so let us not be worried about all that other extraneous stuff.
To summarise, I make two points: First of all, what the Minister has outlined is for all practical purposes what the Alliance Government set in place 18 months ago, with one or two minor changes. It is noteworthy for the absence of any consideration of the total requirement for beds and how in the next few years they are going to be provided. I think Mr Berry is going to be hounded on that point for as long as he remains the Minister, which I suspect is not going to be very long.
MR DUBY (4.21): Mr Kaine's words could have come directly from my mouth. He beat me to the punch in outlining many of the things I was going to say myself. I shall not bore the house by repeating many of the sensible things he said. What is abundantly clear from the statement made today by the Health Minister is that in this document, in this statement to the Assembly, we have ringing endorsement of the Alliance Government's health policy. There is no doubt about that whatsoever. From the man who regularly attacked our redevelopment program and maintained that it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to the ACT health system, we have here today a ringing endorsement of that policy. However, it is an endorsement which unfortunately is couched in a lot of half-truths.
If one were to read this document one would think that many of the statements Mr Berry makes are Labor or Government initiatives. I shall read out some of them:
We have moved to acknowledge the special value of the Acton Peninsula as a site for public health care facilities.
For goodness' sake, what the heck did we do? What is different from our policy? It continues:
We have decided to proceed with the redevelopment of the Woden Valley Hospital ...
I will not go on and pick out more of the blatant half-truths in this document. What I would ask the Minister, quite frankly, is: Who is in government? Who is running this place? How is it that the Alliance Government was
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