Page 456 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 1993
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Madam Speaker, health remains a black hole for this Government. It remains its weakest link. It is the area in which this Government will most suffer and most be at risk when the next election comes around, and Mr Berry, by the same standard, will be the Minister most at risk. I would be very happy to see him avoid that risk by perhaps moving on to another portfolio or by somebody - be it him or somebody else - getting in and doing something about our problems. Let us not wait until it becomes a catastrophe, a disaster. Let us do something about it now, and that means acting on the funding problems which are very much staring us in the face.
MRS GRASSBY (4.05): I find what Mr Humphries had to say very interesting. To stand there after he had a $17m blow-out himself - $11m under the business rules and $6m which was unapproved - is like the pot calling the kettle black. It was this Minister that closed the Canberra Hospital.
Mr Humphries: This one?
MRS GRASSBY: No. The Minister across there, Mr Humphries, closed the Canberra Hospital.
Mr Humphries: I think he actually did it.
MRS GRASSBY: No. You closed it with the absolute cost of moving the whole hospital over to Woden. It was an absolutely enormous cost to the health system. You could not close it fast enough, Mr Humphries. You wanted it closed; that was it.
Mr De Domenico: You could have kept it open if you had wanted to.
MRS GRASSBY: There was no way I could get it kept open. By the time this Government came to power things were pulled out of the wall; the place was a mess.
Ms Follett: Do not respond to them.
MRS GRASSBY: You are right; why respond to rabble? You are right. Chief Minister, I am sorry; I should not have.
Mr De Domenico: Did the Chief Minister say "rabble"?
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MRS GRASSBY: No, the Chief Minister did not say that; I said that. The Chief Minister is well above that; she would not say that. Mr Humphries knows about bed numbers. We went on an inquiry about bed numbers and we were told everywhere we went, "You do not count beds". No hospital in New South Wales counts beds. Still you are all talking about counting beds when you were told - and I was there with you - at every hospital we went to, "You do not count beds". Here is Mr Humphries still counting beds. What is happening now is that the hospital system is seeing more people, getting them through quicker. The hospital system is working much better than it did under you, Mr Humphries.
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