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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2262 ..

MR BERRY: Mr Humphries interjects that I have attacked a few doctors in my time. Mr Humphries might want to reflect on this. When I revolutionised the way that negotiations could occur with the visiting medical officers there was a bitter dispute; but it was a bitter dispute that had to be had, and you people have profited from it because you can now negotiate on a better base when it comes to the visiting medical officers' contracts.

Mr Humphries: So sometimes you need to take on a doctor or two, don't you.

MR BERRY: Mr Humphries, you never took the heat when you were in government. It was a job that had to be done. It was an unpleasant job and it resulted in higher waiting lists, which Mr Moore attempts to reflect adversely on these days.

Mr Speaker, it was mentioned yesterday that I had defamed or had a shot at the doctors with the protection of this place. As a result, booking fees in the ACT were stamped out. Booking fees were an extraordinary imposition on ordinary working people in the community, so do not have a crack at me about the times that I have had a shot at doctors.

This is about Mr Moore's approach to hospitals and his attacks on doctors and so on. All of a sudden he has been drawn back to this peace and tranquillity argument because he is back on his heels now because a few people have risen up and criticised his management of the hospital system. Mr Moore was once a left-of-centre politician in the ACT who really wanted to give the appearance that he was concerned about the public interest. That has evaporated.

You can no longer make those claims, Mr Moore. You have joined the conservatives and you have moved with them to push people from the public hospital system into the private sector. There is no question about that. You moan today about declining incomes to the hospital from people with private insurance, yet people who come to your hospital with compensible injuries are taken away to the private hospitals. They are encouraged to go there. If I am not mistaken, there is still a position within your hospital where people with compensible injuries are encouraged to go into the private hospital system next door-the private hospital that Mrs Carnell built to encourage people with private insurance to receive treatment here. So don't give me any of that.

Mr Speaker, the area of health has always been troublesome for every minister who has ever handled it. There have been lots of claims on both sides about what is going on in the hospital, but do not get up in this place, Mr Moore, and say that you, all of a sudden, want peace and tranquillity. The only reason you want it is because you have been knocked back on your heels by criticism out in the community. It is a troublesome portfolio, but you have got a long way to go, Mr Moore, before you equal the achievements of others in this place. Before you boast about your own position, at least have the honesty to reflect accurately on the achievements of others. I will not go any further than that.

Mr Humphries: Oh, dear, Wayne! Please. I ate only two hours ago.

MR BERRY: I will go further than that, now that I have been provoked.

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