Page 3057 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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She made this speech on 6 June, only a month or so after Mr Humphries' letter in the Canberra Times pointing out that recurrent equivalent costs would be about $13m to keep that hospital open. The feasibility study shows that a medical/surgical hospital can be kept open for the same money in recurrent terms. If you want to read further, you will find repetition of the same situation, Mr Deputy Speaker. Those words of Ms Follett will come back to haunt her; they will come back to haunt the Labor Party. What we have seen here is a turnaround of the worst possible kind.
The feasibility study that was commissioned by Wayne Berry was prepared largely on the data provided for the original ACT Public Hospitals Redevelopment Steering Committee. We note that the information is very similar to that. When that study was commissioned by this Minister, one cannot help wondering whether he had already made his decision, whether he had already decided that the Humphries approach, which he had criticised again and again, was going to continue anyway and he was simply going to point the finger at Gary Humphries and say, "You took it too far. You were fast-tracking. It was a great inconvenience. It has gone too far. We cannot do anything about it". That is the impression that the Canberra community have, and it is that impression that the Labor Party has given that brings me to that accusation of dishonesty, because it is a dishonest impression. It is quite clear, it is quite categorical, from the feasibility study commissioned by Mr Berry and based on - - -
Mr Berry: I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think that the imputation that Labor Party members are dishonest ought to be withdrawn.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Who are you saying is making the implication?
Mr Berry: Mr Moore just talked about dishonesty.
Mr Humphries: Mr Deputy Speaker, speaking to the point of order, I quote from Ms Follett's statement of 6 June 1990 on the same subject when she referred to "the dishonest approach that has been taken by the members of the Government". At that stage it was the Alliance Government. Mr Deputy Speaker, if the term was good enough for Mr Berry then, it is good enough for Mr Moore now.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Could I look at that, Mr Humphries? It is a photocopy from Hansard. Those words were used on 6 June 1990, Mr Berry. Mr Speaker was in the chair. I am against you on that point.
MR MOORE: This has been a particularly dishonest approach, made even worse by the fact that this very same accusation was levelled by the Chief Minister, who is obviously too embarrassed to be here. She should be too embarrassed to be here; it was her Bill at that time and it was her
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