Page 435 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 2 March 1994
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MR HUMPHRIES: Borrowings are getting higher. I do not think borrowings are going to make any difference, at the end of the day, to what sort of credit rating you have; but they will make a very important difference to the future prospects - - -
Mr Kaine: The more you borrow the better credit rating you have.
MR HUMPHRIES: You can borrow and get a better credit rating; that is right. You can get AAAA, if you are really lucky. The fact of life, though, is that this Government is borrowing more than all the governments that have gone before it put together, and you are making decisions that will come back to haunt us in the future.
Ms Follett made few references to some of the really important issues facing the Territory at the present time, like the crisis in our health system. That situation was glibly overlooked or passed by very fleetingly by Ms Follett in her statement. There are few areas in Government administration in the ACT today which have more popular concern being expressed about them than the administration of the health system. How the Government's legislative program and plans for the coming six months can ignore the crisis in our health system is a mystery to me.
Mr Berry in his statement earlier today in question time, and it was a statement, made some assertion about people being very happy with what is going on in health at the present time. "Things are getting so much better now", says Mr Berry. That statement - "Things are getting better; people are happy" - will go down in history with statements like, "Let them eat cake", indicating the utter unreality, the utter disconnection between the person making the statement and the truth of what is going on in the community around them.
Mr Berry should come down and listen to some of the things that are being said on the phone-in line Mrs Carnell has set up, listen to what people, both consumers and workers within the hospital system, are saying about the problems facing our hospital system today. It is absolutely and utterly disgraceful. How this Minister manages to get up every day and look in the mirror and then come to work, knowing what is going on in the health system, is a complete mystery to me.
He uses phrases like, "We do not treat beds; we treat people". That phrase rings a bell. I thought, "Where have I heard a phrase like that before?", and then it hit me. It sounds very much like that phrase used by the gun lobby: "Guns do not kill people; people kill people". Exactly the same logic is used in the phrase, "We do not treat beds; we treat people". Of course, beds are extremely important. Waiting lists are an important indicator. They were important to the Minister when he was in opposition, but somehow they seem to have been overlooked now that he is back in government.
The Government makes fleeting reference to the Electoral (Amendment) Bill. Ms Follett has the gall to say:
... an important focus this year is the implementation of the electoral system chosen by the people of the ACT.
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