Page 3062 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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during the period of the Alliance Government that there should not have been a decision made to support one, because it would be supported at the expense of the public hospital system and at the expense of the people of the ACT generally.
Mr Deputy Speaker, we have had a year-and-a-half of chaos in our hospital system; we have had budget blow-outs in our hospital system and add-ons to the original costings of the former Alliance Government. For Mr Moore to come forward now and say that we should add on another $13m for the retention of the Royal Canberra Hospital I think borders on the irresponsible.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.07): Mr Deputy Speaker, I welcome the opportunity of contributing to this debate. I approach the matter from a different angle from that of Mr Moore; but I certainly agree with Mr Moore that the basic question of the Government's dishonesty and hypocrisy in this matter deserves to be raised, deserves to be addressed and deserves to be faced up to by the Government. Mind you, Mr Deputy Speaker, I note that Mr Berry has now left the chamber. He is not anxious to take the heat and I look forward to seeing whether he comes back.
I think there are a few myths that need to be dispelled at this stage. We need to quickly put an end to this curious example of history being rewritten by this Government. That, Mr Deputy Speaker, is exactly what is happening; history is being rewritten. First of all, it is worth going back to the basic premise argued by Mr Berry for this Government's decision to proceed basically with the Alliance Government's plans to redevelop the public hospital system in the ACT.
Mr Berry's argument goes as follows: "We intended in 1989 bravely to sally forth and choose an option for hospital redevelopment which provided for the retention of the Royal Canberra Hospital North and had we remained in office we would have been able to complete that plan. It was purely the dastardly acts of the Alliance that prevented us from completing that action".
Mr Berry then goes on to say that on taking office again in June of this year his Government struggled bravely with the mess inherited from the Alliance in a desperate attempt to save the hospital that they so cherished. Unfortunately, try as they might, they could not devise a way of preserving that hospital and, as a result, have had to let it go by the wayside and accept and inherit the wisdom of the Alliance Government's plans for hospital redevelopment.
Mr Berry argues that the situation in 1989, when the Government then did wish to proceed with the retention of Royal Canberra North, was different from that in 1991 when he says that it is not possible for the Government to retain Royal Canberra North. The situation was indeed different; that much I will concede, to a point. There was
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