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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (15 May) . . Page.. 1462 ..

Mrs Carnell: It is very clear!

MR HUMPHRIES: One has to be very charitable to take that view. On the basis that the motion is about getting information and clarifying a picture, then a great deal of effort will be needed to do that. If that is the case, then we will find ourselves consumed with much work in that regard. When I say "we", I mean members of the committee, which obviously will not include me. That will be a very time-consuming exercise.

Looking across at Mr Berry and the broad smile he has on his face at the moment, I have to say that I have a rather more cynical view about what the motion is all about. It is, I suspect, about doing a job on the private hospital. Having listened to the comments Mr Berry made when he introduced this motion, one can have absolutely no doubt about what Mr Berry thinks about private hospitals. We know what Mr Berry's view about private hospitals has been on many occasions in the past. We know that Mr Berry is adamantly opposed to almost any form of private involvement in the public health system.

Mr Moore: That is not true. He would have closed them when he was Minister if that were the case.

MR HUMPHRIES: I think Mr Berry would have liked to close them if he could have got away with it. Mr Berry certainly adamantly opposed the opening of so much as a single further private hospital bed in the ACT - a decision that, in fact, was so nonsensical that when he lost office and was relieved of his duties as Minister for Health by the Assembly in April of 1994 - - -

Mr Berry: No; he resigned.

MR HUMPHRIES: Okay; he resigned before he was pushed. He jumped off the bridge on which the horde was - - -

Mr Moore: Gary, you are standing on thin ice here. I do not know that I would pursue that one any further.

MR SPEAKER: You are on very thin ice, too, Mr Moore, if you continue to interject. Mr Humphries has the floor.

MR HUMPHRIES: If Mr Moore prefers, before Mr Berry fell through the thin ice into the cold water, he adamantly refused to license extra private beds at John James Hospital. Immediately after that point, when Mr Connolly became Minister for Health, one of his first decisions was to say, "Yes, it is sensible and logical to provide extra private hospital bed authorisations for John James Hospital". Indeed, he did do that. As I recall, he provided obstetric beds at John James Hospital. As a person who had one of his children born in one of those beds, I have to say I am very grateful that that was the case. It is an indicator of how very dogmatic and ideological Mr Berry's view about private hospitals and private hospital beds is.

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