Page 1648 - Week 08 - Thursday, 28 September 1989
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Municipal services, consuming some $105m this year, and particularly the ACTION bus service, which in 1989-90 will be subsidised to the tune of $25m - and that is almost one half of the general rates revenue - need to be reviewed. Again, bus drivers deliver the goods, literally, and so do the people maintaining our magnificent parks and gardens, but bureaucrats in offices do not.
A brief word on housing, Mr Speaker, which my colleagues will expand on. One commendable initiative in the budget is that of removing stamp duty for first home buyers. This will be welcomed by the beneficiaries and the housing industry alike. It is interesting that this last-minute initiative was lifted in its entirety from Liberal policy. It is the kind of initiative that is needed, and I commend the Government for it.
The cost to the ACT community of restrictive work practices and undue union control is also a matter which needs urgent and close scrutiny. Under self-government, we can no longer afford the luxury of supporting trade union interests from the public purse.
What is needed, Mr Speaker, is to get away from nibbling at the periphery and to really attack the heart of the problem. As an example, let me pose a radical scenario in health delivery. Let us face up to the principal hospital dilemma and retain the Royal Canberra Hospital as a low intensity care, low cost community hospital facility. Then it will always be there if we want later to exercise options relating to upgrading it to major hospital status when the population can sustain it or even to a teaching hospital in conjunction with a medical faculty of the ANU, if that is desired.
Let us sell Jindalee, the Queen Elizabeth II nursing home and the Taj Mahal on Moore Street. Let us transfer all of the patients from Jindalee and the Queen Elizabeth II home down to the Royal Canberra Hospital community hospital. Let us place hospital management totally in the hands of hospital boards; eliminate imbalance between public and private beds by permitting private development of another hospital like John James on the north side and take some pressure off the public purse; transfer bureaucrats out of the Taj Mahal to some of the unused capacity of the now Royal Canberra Hospital community hospital facility. In doing all of this - - -
Mr Berry: It is a Second World War scenario.
MR KAINE: You will get your turn, Mr Berry. In doing all this we would both achieve significant capital gain and reduce our operating costs and, at the same time, retain the Royal Canberra Hospital for future development. Radical thinking? Maybe, but this is the kind of solution demanded of government. But this Labor Government will not be so bold or imaginative as to consider anything other
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