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talk through the issues. They could have seen the videotape produced of the seminar for members of the work force who could not get to those seminars to see what the issues were. They could have looked at any one of the many newsletters and briefing papers produced by the consultants to talk through the issues with the staff.

This is a document representing not just the experience of our consultants but also the combined experience of staff working in our public hospital system. Members opposite who dismiss it with a light brush of the hand, saying that it is not worth the paper it is written on, fail to acknowledge that that level of consultation and discussion which has been worked through with the staff is of great value and has not been done before, that I am aware of, at that level and deserves to be acted upon. I remind members that the redundancies this report generates and which the Government ultimately will put in place are to be voluntary redundancies. That means that the staff concerned have to want to take a redundancy before it can be effected, before a saving can be achieved. Members should be aware that there is considerable interest out in the community in those redundancies because people know that change is inevitable in the system and that the process being embarked upon is a process that any government worth its salt would have had to embark upon.

This is not just about making savings in the hospital system; it is about producing benefits for the people of Canberra. Only a few minutes ago the Chief Minister detailed some of those benefits to the people of Canberra, which we cannot achieve unless we bite the bullet by addressing the overstaffing and other problems in our public hospital system. We cannot justify an administrative staff of over 400 people for Woden Valley Hospital alone. We simply cannot do that. It is irresponsible to pretend to people in our community that we can sail along with this level of staffing and these ways of doing things, that nothing needs to change, that we can all be happy with the present arrangements.

Mr Berry: How many nurses are included in that?

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Berry well knows that this report has identified for downsizing many more important areas than nursing. He well knows that, and he is very fond of scaremongering about the nurses. I do not see us mentioning anything about his downsizing of doctors. This is the old good worker-bad worker routine; within our public hospital system there are workers who are worth defending and there are workers who are not worth defending. I think that is a very unfortunate attitude. We, as the Government, are charged with the task of administering a system for all Canberrans, even for people outside the borders of the ACT. We need to have a mechanism for providing answers to those people's problems, for providing them with services.

We will, as a result of that demand, that challenge, be providing new services. There will be an additional $2m provided to address the waiting lists for elective surgery; additional family services for people living in Gungahlin; the establishment costs of the cardio-thoracic unit at Woden Valley Hospital. This is not going to be just another report designed to employ consultants; this is the blueprint for delivering extra services to the people of Canberra. If those opposite do not think this is worth doing, they should say so. They should not perpetrate on the people of Canberra the deception that we do not really need to tighten our belts at all, that we can carry on as we have been carrying on for

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