Page 2662 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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I have heard members speak about various levels of support for this motion. I think it was absolutely wrong that the motion should be brought before the Assembly. I have heard members say that they would not support the motion. I urge those members who have indicated that they might not support the motion to reconsider their position. We ought not play into the hands of the Liberal Party on this issue and we ought not take any action which might embarrass the board. It has done some difficult work and has gone through a very difficult stage. The environment which has caused most of that difficulty has been largely created by the activities of the bloody Liberal Party - by the Liberal Party. I withdraw that.
Mr Humphries: Minister, it has been created by the facts. The facts speak for themselves.
MR BERRY: I think they have been particularly bloody-minded on the issue and unfeeling about the potential hazards which they create in pursuing their political agenda.
Mr Speaker, I urge all members to support this motion. The Government will be supporting the motion. I might add, though, that the Government will not be prevented from taking another course of action in relation to a structure which is to replace the board when its term runs out. That is a Government decision, as has been correctly put by Mr Duby and I think by Mr Moore. But in any event I urge those members who might have been inclined to oppose the motion to support it, if for no other reason than not to play into the hands of the Liberal Party, but certainly to make sure there is no criticism of the hard work that the interim board has done in carrying the health system through a hiatus, if you like, between any real interest in the ACT by the Federal Government and the time that the Government was formed in the Australian Capital Territory.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.54): I must say that the Minister's response to this motion is one of the most curious responses that I have heard in the six months' life of the Assembly.
Mr Whalan: What did you expect?
MR KAINE: Given the position that the Minister is in, I can understand why he reacted in the way that he did, but to attempt to turn the crisis in the management of our hospitals back on the Liberal Party is just absurd. We did not begin this debate publicly, I remind the Minister. There was a great deal of public debate with the Australian Nursing Federation, the Hospital Employees Federation and the AMA, talking about the crisis in the hospitals, long before any member of the Liberal Party raised the matter on the floor of this house. There was a crisis in place before we raised the matter for debate. We raised the matter for debate because there was concern out there. We
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