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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 195 ..

MR SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope, resume your seat. A point of order has been taken.

Mr Moore: Mr Speaker, I made no such promise and Mr Stanhope has arrogantly put words into my mouth. He cannot do that.

Mr Wood: What is the point of order?

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

MR STANHOPE: Hoist with your own petard, Mr Moore. Mr Moore has a long way to go to meet these commitments, the commitments which it seems to me he has just reaffirmed. In fact, the latest figures released by the hospital show that he is going backwards, let alone moving to meet his target of another 300 beds this year. Calvary has 20 fewer beds available now than a year ago; Canberra Hospital has 50 fewer beds available than a year ago. (Extension of time granted)

Mrs Carnell promised to have a hospital bed available for every Canberran who needed one. That was in Mrs Carnell's promises. Tell that to the patients whose stories appear with monotonous regularity in the media, sent home because there were no beds available. Mrs Carnell trotted out the same line when she made the same promises four years ago. Despite the promises, the situation is worse now than it was when the promises were made. The situation is worse. Patients are still being sent home and there are fewer beds available than there were a year ago.

These are the stories we have in the Canberra Times: "Neurosurgery cancelled with minutes to go"; "Hospital has no bed for woman suffering from severe brain damage"; "Canberra Hospital has no bed for Mr Neely"; "Health fiasco. Operation cancelled five times"; "Operation cancelled minutes before admission". They go on and on. Like it or not, these were the measures that Mrs Carnell set for herself and her Government, these were her yardsticks, and it is past time that she and her Government, through Mr Moore, explained why they have failed to get anywhere with them. They need to explain what are the new targets. What is the target that will replace the 1,000 beds by the end of 1999? What are the new plans? What is the new philosophy that will be applied to the Canberra Hospital to replace these failed promises?

Mr Speaker, Canberra knows that there is a crisis looming in our health system. We read about it and hear about it all the time, we see it on the television news and many of us experience it. Everyone in Canberra has a hospital story. Mr Moore admits that there is a problem. He said that one of his priorities on his move to the front bench would be to address the morale problem in the hospital system. He prides himself on his commitment to consultative processes. Where has this commitment taken Mr Moore? It took him around the Canberra Hospital where, he told us, he talked constantly to nurses who gave him a different story from the one their union was telling. The Canberra Times of 19 September reported how distressed Mr Moore was that the ANF was clearly out of touch. That was the report in September: The ANF was clearly out of touch with its membership. Mr Moore then called their bluff. He forced an EBA on them. He called their bluff; he dared them to go to the membership in a secret ballot. We all know the result of that - one of those terrible thumpings.

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