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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1129 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

(5) the foregoing provisions of this resolution have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.

Mr Speaker, this is an inquiry which is intended to examine the issue of a new private hospital at or near the Canberra Hospital.

Mr Humphries: Even after the contracts are signed?

MR BERRY: Mr Humphries says that the contract is signed. That makes no difference.

Mr Humphries: It did to Ms McRae yesterday. It made a big difference yesterday.

MR BERRY: It makes no difference. Mr Speaker, this is not about blocking contracts; it is about exposing to the people of the ACT what this private hospital really means. It would have been better if this inquiry could have been held before the contracts were signed; but I notice that Mrs Carnell very quickly signed these contracts before this sitting period, in the knowledge that I would have an interest in the matter.

Mr Speaker, what we need to do is to look at the effect of this new private hospital on the public hospitals here in the ACT and the private hospitals. What we also need to determine is whether that effect on our public hospital system is a good one or a bad one. There is this ideological passion in the Government members opposite to push people out of public beds and into the private sector, and reduce the effectiveness of the public hospital system, therefore.

There is, equally, an ideological commitment on this side of the house to preserve the public hospital system and to ensure that the strongest possible public system can exist in the Australian Capital Territory. That is not to say that there ought not to be a private hospital system. I support a strong private hospital system, provided that it does not undermine the effectiveness of the public system, because it is the public system which should be available to all people in the ACT; but we have seen in many other places, Mr Speaker, that governments have been tempted by the opportunity to reduce public hospital resources and to force people into the private sector.

Mrs Carnell quite often harps on the issue of the level of private insurance in the ACT and the refusal of those who are privately insured to be treated as private patients in our public hospital system. That is their right. Mr Speaker, what Mrs Carnell apparently intends to do is to force them, in some way, into the private sector.

Mrs Carnell: How?

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, she asks, "How?". It is very easy for a right-wing government to deal with the issue of how. They just reduce public facilities in order that the public system becomes unattractive and then only the rich can have access to hospital beds.

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