Page 2645 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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MR DE DOMENICO: I am glad that Mr Berry interjects, because the interjection is quite interesting. Mr Berry says that it is the capital cost for the first year. What are going to be the recurrent costs of continuing to provide this facility? Let us have a look at the total project cost. Mr Berry was not able to give us some figures. In July 1992 the very organisation that Mr Berry was talking about, the Family Planning Association, declared that the ACT Government would have to spend an estimated $800,000 to establish and run an abortion clinic. That appeared in the Canberra Times on 16 July. I know that Mr Berry is not establishing and running an abortion clinic, but he is refurbishing, at a capital cost for one year, the Civic facility. But Mr Berry still has not answered this question: What is going to be the recurrent cost of running the clinic?
Mr Berry: Ask the Family Planning Association. Do not ask me.
MR DE DOMENICO: I am getting to that, Mr Berry. Just sit down and be patient. The executive director of the organisation that Mr Berry is alluding to, the Family Planning Association, Sandra McKenzie, estimated that the establishment costs would be between $300,000 and $400,000 - $190,000 for refurbishment and another $130,000 for the equipment. They are the costs that the Family Planning Association is talking about.
Mr Berry: Early estimates.
MR DE DOMENICO: He says that they were early estimates. Over $1m was the early estimate - more than 10 times the amount of money that Mr Berry believes that it is going to cost. I would like to ask a question of Mr Berry. Mr Berry thinks that the Family Planning Association is a magnificent organisation to run this fantastic new facility that he is providing. It says that it will cost ten times the amount of money that he says it will cost. With Mr Berry's record on costings and budgets in relation to health, I think that most of the community would tend to believe the Family Planning Association before they would believe him. That is point No. 1. In other words, Madam Speaker, the capital cost of the site provision has not been addressed at all. Notwithstanding what Mr Berry might stand up and say in this place from time to time, the capital cost and the future cost of the provision of this service have not been addressed.
The recurrent budget implications were stated to the PDI Committee. The recurrent budget implications were stated as being nil. On the piece of paper presented to the PDI Committee Mr Berry's department said that the recurrent costs were nil. How can Mr Berry stand up in this place and say that he is providing this magnificent health facility and that the recurrent costs stated by the Health Department are nil? He has not explained that; nor can he, I suggest. The Family Planning Association, which is not close to this side of politics or any side of politics, is going to be left with the responsibility of running this clinic. In 1992 the association estimated that another $400,000 would be required to meet annual running costs. These are the estimates of the Family Planning Association, notwithstanding what facilities are going to be provided in this clinic. I am not going to get into the moral argument; just leave it to the financial side.
Mr Lamont: Yes, you are.
MR DE DOMENICO: If you interject I will; I am telling you. The Family Planning Association, Madam Speaker, will be required to meet an annual running cost of $400,000. Of course, Medicare might have to contribute $150,000 out of that $400,000, but a quarter of a million dollars is left.
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