Page 4153 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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your motion is carried. But the facts will be very different. Mr Berry will not, in any way, be diminished by a simple numbers vote at the end of this debate.
MR BERRY (3.31): I must say that I am happy to rise to debate this motion which has been moved by the Minister opposite in an attempt to cover up his failures in the provision not only of ambulance services but services in the health area generally.
One of the first things that I think need to be made clear in this debate is that I am about providing better services for the people of the ACT. This Minister is responsible for providing worse services. That is the very clear thing. If you censure me, then you censure the services that are provided to the ACT and the services that I seek to support.
The second thing that I want to make very clear at the outset of this debate is that I said - it is on the record - that we were prepared to work with the Government and cooperate with the Government on this very issue, but the Minister's evasiveness on the issue of ambulance services has proved that he is more prepared to cover up on the issue. As I first accused, and as I have proven, he is more prepared to cover up than to cooperate to improve services in the ACT. Not once has the Minister spoken to me since I made the offer of cooperative action with the Government to improve ambulance services in the ACT.
Now, let me cite some examples, if we can keep the member opposite quiet for a moment, of where the Minister has - - -
Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, I have heard quite a lot of Mr Berry's speech so far. He obviously is about to launch into a diatribe of other so-called shortcomings, alleged shortcomings, in my management of the Ambulance Service. But the issue we are debating, the relevant issue we are debating, is not my handling; it is whether Mr Berry misled the Assembly on Tuesday.
Mr Connolly: You will not even let him defend himself. What sort of an assembly is this?
Mr Jensen: He is not defending himself.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Connolly and Mr Jensen! Mr Berry, I would ask you to remain relevant to the motion before the house.
MR BERRY: Indeed - which I do not have a copy of, incidentally, Mr Speaker, so it is a bit hard to be relevant.
Mr Humphries: It is pretty simple - that we censure you for misleading the house.
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