Page 2670 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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able, with adequate planning, to guarantee the provision of facilities which you now say are going to cost a lot of money and simply cannot be afforded?
The remarkable thing about this is that I know where this is coming from. This is coming from the ACT Treasury. Whilst I have the greatest respect for the public servants, we all know their very conservative views when it comes to the provision of funding for community facilities. I find it remarkable that a supposedly socially progressive party such as the Labor Party has fallen for this line.
It was never suggested or implied by the Alliance Government that the provision of additional facilities such as, for example, a birthing centre, a hospice, convalescent facilities and a modern nursing home, would be provided as part of the cost of the hospital redevelopment program. We always knew that they were additional, and said so publicly on many occasions. We did say that we recognised the vital need for these facilities in the community and, as a result, that we would take responsible action; that these things were required and we would provide them; that we would find the funds to do that.
There is no doubt that a birthing centre would have been included. Mr Berry has admitted that he is going to go ahead; he is continuing with one great idea we had. There is no doubt in my mind that the hospice and the convalescent facilities that were promised by the Alliance Government would have been provided in this coming year. We had already made plans, against the advice of senior public servants, I might add, who said, "Where is the money coming from?". We simply said, "We will find the money. We will make the hard decisions and we will provide these facilities because they are so desperately needed".
I now see what is happening with this. I could not understand in the last few weeks exactly what was going on with the Government's announcements. They are going to do this; they are not going to do that; they are going to reinvent the wheel, et cetera. It is clear now that the public servants are running the economy of the ACT. They have clearly got control of the place, and these folk opposite simply do not have the guts to stand up and say, "This is what the people want and this is what shall be provided for them". Instead, they are listening to the harsh economic theories put forward by people in the ACT Treasury. I am very disappointed.
It seems remarkable to me that, even today, we have been referred to as the conservatives - "the conservatives", "the previous conservative Government". It is fairly apparent, when you look at what that supposedly conservative government, the Alliance Government, was going to implement and introduce to the community, that we are miles ahead of the Labor Party in terms of issuing directions to the public sector and saying, "This is what the people want. Get on and do it".
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