Page 285 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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to explain his blowing-out budget. There is no longer an excuse this year, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. All of the things that he claimed last year and the year before were contributing to blow-outs in his budget have been built into his budget this year. So he has no out this year. If he blows out this year it is due to absolute mismanagement and lack of control by the Executive. He is the man who is responsible for the expenditure of that money and, if he cannot manage it this year, he can never manage anything.
Mr Berry talks about 3,688 people being on the waiting list for elective surgery. There are two things about those 3,688 people. He can talk about the 50,000 people that the hospital system does take care of, but what about the 3,688 that it is not taking care of?
Mr Berry: Three thousand more than when you were there.
MR KAINE: He can shrug that off. It is three times as many as what you were complaining about two years ago. It is an absolute disgrace. These 3,688 people are not just people who have said, "Gee, I would like to go into hospital and have some surgery". These are people who are in pain and whose doctors have said, "This person needs surgery".
I get phone calls every day in the week. I got a phone call last week from a woman in her seventies who had been trying to get into hospital. She has a very painful back problem and she has got to the stage where she can virtually not cope with it any more. She was finally told by her doctor that she would go into surgery early next month. I think it is next week. When she checked with the hospital the hospital put a question mark around that. She was absolutely distraught because she has got to the point that she cannot cope with this pain any longer. She is one of the 3,688 that the Minister shrugs off; because we look after 50,000 the other 3,688 do not matter. They do matter. The problem is, with all of these books and so forth that the Minister produces, that these people are just numbers, and that is the way the Minister sees them. They are just numbers; they are not people.
Underlying this debate about the hospice is the fact that his whole system is in crisis. Mr Berry devotes his entire time and energy to demanding that the hospice go where he thinks is a good idea. I am not wedded to Acton Peninsula, or Calvary, as the site, but I do say that Mr Berry has had $3m in his back pocket for two years now and that $3m was to provide a freestanding hospice. What he is trying to do is sell it cheap; he is going to get a cheap one on Acton. What is he going to do with the rest of the money? Cover some of the blow-out in his budgets? If he could get a freestanding hospice in the car park on Acton Peninsula for $3m, he could go and build one on the escarpment overlooking the Brindabellas in Tuggeranong, where people have a fantastic view of the Brindabella Mountains, if it is view and outlook that he is talking about; but all he can concentrate on is, "The lake is lovely and people like to be by the lake". I can think of many other places in Canberra where it would be congenial for people to spend what few hours, days or weeks they have left of their lives. It does not have to be at Acton Peninsula, and he has had the money to do it. So it is no good him standing up now and saying, "Acton is the only place this can go and we have to do it now; Calvary is no good".
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