Page 938 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 April 1994
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Mrs Carnell: Waiting lists, no beds.
MR BERRY: Gall you as it may, and make you fidget on your chairs, it is a matter of fact and something that we are very proud of. I just hope that you have the good grace to join with us and be proud of it too.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.12): Mr Deputy Speaker, I cannot let those comments by Mr Berry pass. I can recall very distinctly sitting in this chamber when the Alliance Government began to get the ball rolling on a clinical school. Late in the Alliance Government's term there were discussions and there were plans being laid down for the establishment of a clinical school. As I recall - I would stand to be corrected on this matter - I was the first Minister to make a statement in this place about clinical schools and the need for that to happen.
Mr Berry: Somebody will drag out the papers which show that you did nothing.
MR HUMPHRIES: It makes Mr Berry a little bit uncomfortable that someone else did get the ball rolling on this before him, but that is understandable. I can see that he is a bit tender at the moment, Mr Deputy Speaker, and we over on this side of the house want to go a bit soft on him. I can very clearly recall Mr Berry responding at the time to some comments about training doctors in the ACT. His comment was, and I am sure that this is in Hansard somewhere, "Why do we need to train any more doctors here anyway?". That was Wayne Berry. That was the man who has just said what wonderful news this Government is delivering by providing a facility to train doctors.
This is also the man who has hoed into doctors at every available opportunity. I wonder how he gets his cough looked at by a doctor or his ingrown toenail taken out. Frankly, he must hate doctors with a vengeance. In fact he does hate doctors with a vengeance. Mr Berry is not happy in his heart of hearts about this development. He knows that this facility will mean the training of doctors in the ACT, and it may mean that we have better access to doctors. I think that is hardly likely to please Mr Berry. He, of course, is privately insured, as we know, and will have no difficulties in securing the services of doctors when he needs them, unlike many of those people who stood on his waiting lists and had to face long delays in getting access to doctors in his public hospital system.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I think all of us around this chamber know what Mr Berry's real feelings are about the clinical training of doctors in this Territory. We do welcome the proposal to have a clinical school in the Territory. We are pleased to see that the idea that we were so keen on some time ago is finally coming to fruition. We hope, Mr Deputy Speaker, that this Government's action on this matter does not experience the delays which have been so characteristic of the Labor Party in the last three years.
Mr Berry: Show me the decisions, Gary. You cannot show them.
MR HUMPHRIES: I made a statement about it, Wayne.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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