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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 4 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1136 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, how can an Assembly committee look at something that has not happened, when the budget that is in place actually has an increase in public hospital spending in the ACT and the only basis on which Mr Berry brought down this motion was that at some stage in the future some government might reduce public hospital spending on some basis that we have more private hospital beds? Mr Speaker, that is not our policy. It is not Mr Berry's policy. I do not know whose policy it is. I would just like to say that I cannot see what an Assembly committee could actually do in this circumstance that has not already been done.

Mr Speaker, I think it is very important to look at some of the history in this situation. The previous Labor Government actually increased the number of private hospital beds by, I think, some 20 per cent during the time that it was in power. I would like to quote from Mr Connolly when he was Health Minister. He said:

We have approved in recent months a total of some 55 additional beds in the private sector, which will take significant pressure off the public sector.

Mr Speaker, that is not a quote from me; that is from a Labor Minister for Health. That is the reality of the situation. What happened as a result of those new private hospital beds? The reality is that pressure was taken off the public hospital, more women chose to have their babies in private hospital beds and we were able to reallocate those public maternity beds to the adolescent unit. So, out of that approach came a much needed new unit in the hospital. I would have thought that everybody would have thought that that was a great way to go. So, if we can produce new services in our public hospital system by allowing private investors to put money into the private system, that has to be good news for our public system generally.

Mr Speaker, it seems to me to be quite clear, on the statistics, that we need new private hospital beds in the ACT. Mr Connolly made it quite clear that private hospital beds did take the pressure off the public hospital system. We certainly need pressure taken off the public hospital system. This Government has made it quite clear that we have no intention of cutting public hospital funding in the ACT. Most importantly, Mr Speaker, not only will this project not cost the ACT taxpayer any money, but there is $2.1m up front, going straight into the public hospital system in the ACT. It has to be a good idea, Mr Speaker. For the life of me, I just think Mr Berry is posturing and, as usual, attempting to stop a project that will, even in the short term, produce 230 jobs.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (12.28): Mr Speaker, I want to make just a brief contribution to this debate; but I do not really need to do any work for that. I am actually in the fortunate position that a speech for me has virtually already been written. I went back to Hansard. I looked at the Hansard of 16 October 1991. There is a speech of Mr Berry's there which I could use here virtually as it stands. It is a perfect response to the present matter. This was at the time of a proposal by me to establish a select committee into hospital bed numbers.

Mr Berry: And you got it.

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