Page 1567 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 12 August 1992
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MR BERRY: One thing that is for sure, Madam Speaker, is that health care is a right and should not be based on your capacity to pay - and that is what the Liberals are about. They are about introducing into this country Kentucky Fried medicine. There is no question about that. There are many attacks on Canberra in "frightpack", as I call it because it is a fearful document for the people of the ACT. Destroying our public hospital system is not something that we will accept lightly. That is why, Madam Speaker, we will continue to struggle against this awful document which is being proposed by Dr Hewson and his Tories opposite.
Mr De Domenico: On a point of order, Madam Speaker: Can Mr Berry be asked to table the document he was reading from?
MADAM SPEAKER: You can move a motion.
MR BERRY: You do not have to pass a motion. I will table it. I table the following paper:
Health Care and Liberals' Fightback Package - Media statement by Mr W. Berry, Minister for Health, dated 12 August 1992.
HIV and AIDS
MRS CARNELL: My question without notice is addressed to the Minister for Health. I will read this slowly. Section 3 subsection (3) of the Public Health (Infectious and Notifiable Diseases) Regulations says:
For the purpose of these Regulations, where the organism presumed to cause an infectious disease or a notifiable disease is found to be present in a person, that person shall be deemed to be suffering from that disease.
AIDS is currently listed as a notifiable disease. Can the Minister this time explain why, on his direction, HIV, the organism which causes AIDS, is not notifiable, again on his direction, except in coded form and on a voluntary basis?
MR BERRY: That question has been answered.
Mrs Carnell: No, it has not.
Mr De Domenico: Do it again.
MR BERRY: I will do it again. The Liberals do not seem to understand the issues that are at large in relation to reporting and dealing with HIV. What has been proposed by one quarter - and the Liberals seem to have missed it - is that HIV ought to be reported and recorded in the same way as other reportable diseases. Of course, if we were to go down that track we would be faced with the situation where many people who would test positive for HIV would not come forward. We would then have the awful and daunting situation where people who are living with HIV would be forced underground. I for one am not going to be party to a system which would give that as an end result.
If it comes to interpretation of legislation and the various details which are contained within Acts and laws in the Territory, there is a mechanism available to the good member, and that is to put the details of those sorts of issues on a piece
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