Page 2671 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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MR COLLAERY (4.27): I rise to respond on only a couple of specific points. I heard my colleague Dr Kinloch speaking, and he said it all. Mr Berry said in question time, and he repeated the comment later, that the Alliance Government had sabotaged the Royal Canberra Hospital and we had closed it. The fact of the matter is that all informed sectors of the community, including informed voices in the Labor Party, accept that Royal Canberra Hospital was left to run down by previous Federal governments, in particular the Labor Government, and that Royal Canberra Hospital was also undermined by the opening of Calvary Hospital.
There is a certain illogicality in Mr Berry's speech. He says that we sabotaged it, but at page 2 of his statement he concedes:
The review shows that the cost of providing comparable services at Calvary Hospital is considerably less ...
In other words, Mr Berry is supporting the a priori case, that is, that any review would have shown at any point along the track, once Canberra was doomed as a result of the Calvary Hospital decision, that those costs would be lower. It is just a polemic for Mr Berry to blame our Government for taking a decision, on the best available advice, to decrease the number of hospitals in the Territory to two. Woe betide Mr Berry, as he now wears the mantle, if he goes against the best available advice in his work as a Minister.
The other point I wish to make is that, once again, Labor exercises a polemic. It says, "We will dedicate the Acton site to convalescent care". At the same time, with the other hand it takes away the funding to do that; similarly with the hospice, as my colleague Dr Kinloch and other speakers have indicated.
I rise simply to point up the hypocrisy of Mr Berry, who did not bite the bullet and take decisions, now saying that at no time did Labor promise to reopen Canberra Hospital. I think the impression given to many in the community was that the Follett Labor Government, with Mr Berry as its prime health spokesperson, would reopen the Canberra Hospital. They have taken a dive and, in doing so, they have made a mean little attempt to shift the blame to us. They have said that we torpedoed any chance of that; we sabotaged it. "Sabotage" is the new word. It used to be "atrocity". For two years in this Assembly Mr Berry's favourite word was "atrocity". It is now "sabotage". They say that we sabotaged the Royal Canberra Hospital.
The fact is that a lot of earnest and complex consideration went into the decisions we took. Whether in the final analysis they will be found to be absolutely correct or not is something that remains to be seen. I suggest to Mr Berry that the same may apply to his administration, and to any Minister in any government at any time. The undeniable
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