QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
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HOSPITALS PRIVATISATION
Mr CARR: My question without notice is directed to the Minister for Health. What is the Minister's timetable for his proposed privatisation of the Prince Henry Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital? When will the Minister release timetables for privatisation of other hospitals on his hit list?
Mr PHILLIPS: The Opposition does not like good news. Some months ago in this House the Government clearly showed its hand as to the number of projects it was unable to fund over the remainder of this decade because of shortfalls in funding from the Federal Government and inability of governments these days to fund more and more projects continually. This Government inherited a $2 billion backlog of capital works and has injected record levels of capital investment in health. More than $300 million a year has been spent in that area, compared to the lack of capital investment by the former Labor Government. At present several major hospital projects are in progress at hospitals at Liverpool, Nepean, St George and on the North Coast. The projects include a $300 million children's hospital in the western part of Sydney and the upgrading of Liverpool Hospital to a teaching hospital.
This Government is seeking to build more hospitals for the people and that is what it will successfully achieve in Port Macquarie. Some years ago my colleague the then Minister for Health, the Hon. Peter Collins, upgraded the Prince of Wales Hospital, a major teaching hospital in this State, to ensure that top-rate health care could be delivered to people in the future. Funding is not available to carry out the enormously costly projects required. This Government is a long way from funding any particular proposal but it honestly says to the people, "We are going to try to work out a proposal so we can tackle a specific problem". No particular date has been set. When we have a proposal to put forward we will do as we did on this one: bring it forward and develop it, and the Opposition can walk all over that contract too. They can find out in terms of service agreements et cetera about the types of arrangements we are putting together. The likelihood is that the arrangement out at Prince of Wales Hospital, when it happens, will be closer to a joint venture between the Government and others, as it is a major teaching hospital and will obviously need a major public commitment. I cannot give any dates on Prince of Wales Hospital but when we have some more good news for the health system we will inform everyone.
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