Page 3889 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 15 December 1992
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Mr Lamont: You should go to Enid Blyton.
Mr Berry: Go back to the written ones.
Mr Connolly: The written ones are better.
Mr De Domenico: Madam Speaker, it is very difficult to hear the wonderful things Mr Kaine is saying, because of the noise.
MR KAINE: I started off by saying that they had lost the debate. It is just like feeding time at the zoo. When they are losing the debate they all start to interject, although when somebody over here interjects they protest and even try to get people suspended. I might move shortly, Madam Speaker, that somebody over there should be named, because they are interjecting while I am speaking. But it is indicative of the level of the debate.
Mr Lamont: You can do that, but we interject only when you have nothing to say, which is most of the time.
MR KAINE: So do we, but that does not make any difference. The simple fact is that people are entitled to a choice. If people who can afford to want to contribute to a private health scheme so that they can go into a private hospital when they need medical attention instead of taking a bed which is in short supply in the public system, why would the Minister stop them?
Mr Berry: I am not going to.
MR KAINE: You have already done so, Minister. You have done nothing, since you have been Minister, except discourage private sector development of hospital facilities in the ACT. When you took government last year there was a strong proposal to build another private hospital on the north side of Canberra. You did everything in your power to prevent that occurring. You make these snide remarks about people not wanting to invest in private beds. I remind you that at John James they have just lifted the roof to put in another floor of wards. So, there is a demand for it and there is an intention and there is a willingness on the part of the people in this city to put their money into private health facilities because they know that there is a need.
They are not like the Minister; they do not have their minds closed to the necessity or the desirability of providing them, and they are prepared to do what the Minister will not do: Put their money where their mouths are. The Minister will not do that; he will not give them any encouragement. He just makes noises about people not wanting private health cover, people not being able to afford it. Of course they can afford it. Mr Berry can afford it, and if he can afford it almost anybody can.
Mr Lamont: The Leader of the Opposition's salary is obviously as big as the Minister's, because I cannot.
MR KAINE: I admit that I have always been privately medically insured, and I will continue to be so because I do not want to take a bed in a public hospital from one of those people who cannot afford it.
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