Page 3666 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
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MR MOORE (3.08): Mr Speaker, I will begin by reading from a letter that I have in my possession. It states:
Therefore the only conclusion that we can come to is that as we are aged pensioners on the basic pension and are not in a private health fund we are only 3rd class citizens. Considering that ... -
his wife -
is not supposed to have any worries or stress it is rather peculiar that the people who are all concerned in this charade are the very ones who are causing the elderly patients great suffering, and distress by telling them that they will -
and the letter goes on. Mr Speaker, this morning on the Matthew Abraham radio show there was a rather heart-rending report that reflects what is happening in our health system. The Labor Party has ripped the heart out of our health system by its initial move in failing to retain the Royal Canberra Hospital, but that is just the beginning.
The Labor Party likes to present itself as being the champion of the poor. The Labor Party's policy on health is set out in the Australian Labor Party ACT Branch Platform, Rules and Regulations. The copy that I have was presented to me by Mr Wayne Berry, with his compliments. I appreciate the fact that he provided me with a copy, and I understand that he is going to give me a more recent copy. That, no doubt, will also come with a "with compliments" slip signed by him. I am looking forward to receiving that.
I understand that this particular paragraph is still in place. It reads:
The ACT ALP is committed to a public health system which emphasises prevention and primary health care within the community -
and here is the critical part; maybe this has been removed -
with adequate resources to promote this emphasis.
This morning, Matthew Abraham interviewed Gabrielle Jarvis, a health carer, who looks after people who are unable to care for themselves. She spoke about people who suffer from multiple sclerosis and stated that they have been told that they are allowed two showers a week because the cutbacks mean a shortage of time.
In response to a question from me at question time today, Mr Berry failed to mention how many showers he has a week, which I can quite understand; that part of the question was indeed flippant.
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