Page 100 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 April 1992
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MR KAINE: I know that you said that you would do it. I remind you, Mr Berry, that the Labor Party, for a long time now, has been saying that they are going to do something about youth unemployment. All that is happening is that youth unemployment is increasing and we do not see any evidence of any action on the part of government to do anything about it. Ms Follett keeps saying that she is going to do something about it. She said it in her strategy statement last year. She has only just now said it again, when setting out the intentions of this Government for the next three years. But she has not yet done anything that has generated one single job for one single youth in this city. So, when Mr Berry says, "We are going to do something about it", are we going to wait until 1995 or 1996?
Mrs Carnell rightly points out that there is a means by which the Government can do this very quickly, and that is simply to allow the pharmacists in this city to do it. When you talk about professionalism, I presume that they are all practising, professional people. They are quite competent to dispense methadone. If you have a program in place whereby the person gets a bit of paper that says, "Front up to your local pharmacist whenever necessary and you will get your dosage", it is as simple as that. It should not take a great deal. You do not need a mental giant to conceive a system whereby this could be done very quickly. I do not know whether we have a mental giant, but the fact is that a program is needed. It has long been demonstrated as needed. We know the dimensions of the problem. The Minister has said that he is going to do something about it. Well, the simple next question, Mr Berry, is: When? When? Tomorrow? Next week? In 1995? In the year 2020? When?
All it requires is for the Minister to say, "We will put this program into place with effect from 1 May or 1 June". It is as simple as that. No problem. The public servants in the health system then go away and they do as they are directed. We know that our public servants are very professional, and they respond very quickly to positive guidance, positive direction and positive management from the political level. There has never been any question about that. They are very professional people. So, please, Mr Berry, say to your Board of Health, "By close of business today we want this methadone program in place; we want it in place by some date". It is as simple as that.
Mr Humphries: That is right. A simple decision.
Mr Berry: That is the way you used to manage Health. That is not the way I do it. We think it out. We do it properly. You know, a bit of cerebral energy.
MR KAINE: That is exactly right. That is how you get things done, Mr Berry. You spent months back there in 1989 trying to figure out what you were going to do about the hospital fiasco. You spent a lot of time thinking about it; but then, as now, you did nothing. We came into government and we very quickly put in place the hospital restructuring program, which you now claim as your own. How incredible!
You have been the Minister again since June of last year and you are still talking about doing things. You are still talking about fixing hospital beds. Let us stop talking about things, Minister. Let us have a simple direction from you to your health administrators to actually do it. It is as simple as that. I will give you a lesson in the way things are done, if you like. It is as simple as that. Just go back to your office, write a little note and send it down to Jim Service at the Board of Health and say, "Dear Jim, I would like you, by 1 May, to implement this
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