Page 2639 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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We must encourage the provision of an environment in which women can make the decisions that are relevant to their own personal circumstances. This includes the provision of support services for those women who choose to continue with their pregnancies as well as for those who find themselves unable to do so.
That is why the air is laden with hypocrisy. The Government is assisting a non-government organisation providing the service and Mrs Carnell, trying to be popular with everybody as usual, turns around on her original position. Mr Humphries adds to the hypocrisy in the air by demonstrating that it was all right when he was providing termination services but it is not all right if somebody else does. Madam Speaker, it is no wonder that the air is heavy with hypocrisy.
I also heard Mr Humphries talking about $100,000 in capital costs being useful for recurrent costs. He did not learn anything as a Health Minister. If he had used the same principles when he was in government he would not have proceeded with the hospital redevelopment project; he would have put all of the money into waiting lists if it was so important to him and if it was so important to convert capital to recurrent costs.
Mr De Domenico: That does not make sense. Would you repeat that, because I did not understand it?
MR BERRY: I shall repeat it so that you understand. Mr Humphries committed the then Government to millions and millions of dollars worth of capital costs in a hospital system, to build things instead of dealing with what he described as some sort of a crisis when he was the Health Minister. Why is it different now? I say to you that it is no different. This is about providing a service for the community which needs it. He also tries to draw some comparison between somebody requiring very specialist health treatment at a specialist hospital in Sydney and somebody who requires a simple procedure in Sydney. There is no comparison, Mr Humphries. You say that it is not all right for somebody to go to Sydney for very specialist treatment, for a heart-lung transplant, for example; but it is right for one woman, or 1,100 women, or 1,500 women, depending on whose figures you use, to go to Sydney to have a simple procedure done. You say that that is all right.
Mr Humphries: It is a lower priority.
MR BERRY: It might be for you and the Right to Life Association; but it was not a lower priority when you were in government, because you provided terminations within the hospital system and you also failed to address the issue - - -
Ms Follett: But not heart-lung transplants.
MR BERRY: But not heart-lung transplants. Really, you steered a treacherous course because you have not demonstrated clearly to the people of the ACT where you are coming from. Where you are coming from is the very same place that you were coming from when it came to the repeal of this legislation.
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