Page 3944 - Week 13 - Thursday, 17 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Government. Ms Follett has been very keen to refer to the former Government's record, and I would like to quote some of the pronouncements of the former Opposition's spokesman on health. On staff cuts, Mr Berry said:
What is proposed by the Liberal-Residents Rally coalition will mean a further attack on public sector jobs and services. All we hear from the Liberal-Residents Rally Ministers is slash or close down services. The stale excuse of Grants Commission identified over-funding is a Liberal-Residents Rally red herring.
The red herring is getting a second use. The red herring has been trotted out again and used extensively by this Government to justify its own cuts, its own slashing and its own closing down of services now that it has taken office.
Of course, most people in this Territory can distinguish between the rhetoric that they heard before this Opposition took government and the rhetoric that they are hearing now. They see a party which says one thing in opposition and does another in government, and they will take that impression very strongly with them into the ballot boxes next February. Mr Berry had other things to say. He said in July of this year:
The conservatives are desperate to close public hospital beds and force people into the private sector - we want to provide more public hospital beds.
Where are they, Mr Berry? Where are the "more public hospital beds" that you wanted to provide? Are they hidden under your desk? Are they upstairs on the fifth floor, stashed away in the Cabinet room? You have been taking them away so far. Of course, we will find out all about that when our select committee meets very shortly. We will find out what you have done with those public hospital beds, and I think you will be very embarrassed when we discover just how much dirt there is to be discovered about this Government.
Mr Stevenson: Under the bed.
MR HUMPHRIES: Under the bed, indeed, Mr Stevenson. Mr Berry said, on 9 April last year:
What Mr Humphries is being very quiet about is the fact that already Canberra has fewer beds per 1,000 residents than elsewhere in Australia and the only way to redress this imbalance is to keep Royal Canberra Hospital open.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .