Page 2644 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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Mr Humphries: So abortions are elective surgery, are they?
MR BERRY: You do not go through accident and emergency for them, Gary. Did you not work that out when you were Health Minister? Of course, there will be an impact, as services are expanded, on the provision of terminations within the day surgery unit. All in all, this is an economic arrangement with a community organisation which is prepared to help to improve the health of Canberra women. Nobody in their right mind would knock back the opportunity at such a low cost.
Mr Humphries: What is the cost? Tell us what the cost is.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
MR BERRY: Those 1,100 or 1,500 women who require these services every year will now have another option.
Mr De Domenico: Every year? Are they the same ones or what? What is the cost per year?
MADAM SPEAKER: We will have order, please! You will have your turn, Mr De Domenico.
MR BERRY: About 1,200 to 1,500 women are forced to go interstate for these services. We are proud to provide them with another option, and it will come at economic cost to the people of the ACT. It will be a service that all of the Territory can be proud of. It will not discriminate against the needy sections of the community, as would happen if Mr Humphries had his way, because this Government is committed to social justice. We are prepared to make the hard decisions. We are prepared to stand up for women, even though Mrs Carnell is not. She said that she was earlier, but she seems now to have changed her mind. Now that the opportunity to expand services presents itself she walks away from it. Mr Humphries, who once provided these services, now says that he does not want them provided. Mr Kaine will say, I am sure, that while he paid for these services in the past he does not want to pay any more.
This is the sort of logic that prevails amongst the Liberal Party. It is not the sort of logic that is acceptable to the ACT community. It is not the sort of logic that this Government will cop. It is certainly inconsistent with the philosophical position we have about the provision of health services here in the ACT. This is an important service which is absolutely necessary, and it will be provided.
MR DE DOMENICO (11.24): May I, first of all, take on one of the last comments that Mr Berry made. He said that it is going to be provided at economic cost to the people of the ACT. Mr Humphries and others have been asking Mr Berry, for quite some time now, exactly what the economic cost is likely to be to the people of the ACT for these sorts of facilities to be provided, not just once in one year but continually at the same location.
Mr Berry: That is capital cost. You spend that once.
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