Page 3456 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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that took all this sort of irresponsible action. So, I agree with you; there was a problem eight or nine months ago. The problem was the Alliance Government. That problem has gone. The Labor Government is in power and we are putting in these right-hand-turn arrows.
Mr Collaery: Only because we believed you. What about Learmonth Drive?
MR CONNOLLY: Mr Collaery seems to be getting stirred up over this issue. I can assure the house that we are putting these arrows in in October. It should solve that problem to a large extent.
Public Hospital Beds
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer to his obsession during his period in opposition until a few months ago with bed numbers as an indicator of the quality or success of our hospital system. I also quote him, from page 3651 of last year's Hansard, where, referring to the plans of the then Alliance Government, he said:
The plan is to wind back the number of public hospital beds, in percentage terms, which are available to the people of the ACT. The fact of the matter is that there will be fewer public beds available to the ... ACT when this Government is finished.
My question, Mr Speaker, is: To which government was he referring?
MR BERRY: What was the page number?
Mr Humphries: Page 3651, of 16 October 1990. You said it, Wayne.
MR BERRY: Well, 16 October 1990; anybody can work out which government it was. It was the Alliance Government, and what Mr Humphries quoted turned out to be true. They worked to reduce the amount of services. They mismanaged the hospital system, as is a matter of record. There was a $6m blow-out because of unapproved activity and, of course, that was of some significant embarrassment to the Liberal Health Minister. It is true that the Alliance Government was responsible for cutbacks in beds. They were unable to manage the hospital system, to improve productivity in terms of modern technology and those sorts of issues which will improve its efficiency.
Now, that is what Labor is going to do. Labor is going to improve the efficiency of our hospital system and we are going to do it by way of a number of initiatives, many of which have been drawn to your attention. I will mention a couple of initiatives, which you might be interested in,
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