Page 740 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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has remarked, it became aware of some serious problems in the administration of the financial processes of public health in this Territory. It started to take action, but then power was snatched by this deal between the Rally, the then No Self Government party - we must never forget that - and the Liberal Party, on the basis of the crisis in the health system.
At the time that this Government came to power it had, perhaps for the first time, some detailed critiques by the Treasury of what the problems were in the health administration. It had the knowledge. We call it a blow-out, we call it an overrun; but it had seen budgetary problems in the first six months of self-government. One would have expected, given its rhetoric, that it would have done a better job of it itself. It patently has not. It patently has done a far worse job than the Labor Government did when in office. We now face this $12m shortfall, overrun, blow-out - call it what you want - a health system in crisis.
It is not just the members on this side of the house who have no confidence in the ability of Mr Humphries to run the Health Department; the Deputy Chief Minister seems to share the same view. It was the Deputy Chief Minister whom we saw on television and read in the newspapers as saying at a press conference the other week that he was pleased that he did not have to wait for a bed, that he did not have to use the public hospital system. He was sneering at the performance of his colleague. It was the Deputy Chief Minister who made some jokes about the casino - yet another farce of this Government - saying that it would not get a bed.
It was the Deputy Chief Minister who, displaying breathtaking disloyalty to his Cabinet colleagues, was making jokes at the farcical situation that Mr Humphries found himself in with budget blow-outs. Those jokes tended to lapse a little a few days later when Mr Collaery's own budgetary problems were revealed, but at the time he was making these extraordinarily disloyal attacks on his colleague. I will be interested to hear how he defends his colleague today, if he is prepared to do so.
I made some remarks earlier on about the deal that brought this Government to power. I noted, while Mr Humphries was making his remarks, that Mr Berry made some comments that the Residents Rally had been bought out, and that is what took them into power. I am sure Mr Kaine would agree that the Residents Rally cannot be bought. It is an unfair thing to say that they can be bought. They can only be rented by the hour.
The thrust of the Opposition's attack, though, is broader than just this inability to manage the health budget. If this Government was providing a health service and running into budgetary difficulties, that would be one thing. It would stand condemned because it has made a great hash of
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