Page 1169 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 March 1991
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The simple fact is that this Government gave an undertaking that all issues relating to safety and pedestrian access and the access of children to the Curtin site would be identified and addressed, and that all measures required to be taken to meet standard safety procedures - and, I must say, the super-standard safety procedures for the children of Lyons who attend the Curtin school - would be met. They have been met and I cannot, for the life of me, see how anyone could complain about the situation that has come about. To say that children's lives are in danger after the work that has been put into that exercise is, frankly, a load of poppycock.
Mr Kaine: Mr Speaker, I request that any further questions be placed on the notice paper.
Hospitals - Nursing Staff
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I would like to answer a question asked of me yesterday by Ms Follett. Ms Follett suggested that I had misled the Assembly over the employment of nurses.
On 21 February Mr Berry asked me whether I would deny that potential nursing staff were being turned away from the hospitals as costs are cut. I responded by denying that potential nursing staff had been turned away. Yesterday Ms Follett produced a letter, dated 22 February, advising an applicant that there had been no vacancies available at that time on the nursing staff at Royal Canberra Hospital North. Ms Follett used this evidence to suggest that I had misled the Assembly.
Ms Follett: No, I asked the question.
MR HUMPHRIES: She more than asked the question. She positively alleged that I had misled the Assembly. I have maintained in the past that there are ongoing difficulties in recruiting to specialist areas such as operating theatres, intensive care and oncology. It is, however, quite another thing to allege that every area of the hospital suffers a shortage of nurses at every level. Ms Follett's question seems to assume that I was saying that any nurse, however qualified, or whatever position she sought, who fronted to the hospital would be offered employment. This is obviously nonsense.
I have often maintained in this place that the only people who would be turned away are those who are insufficiently qualified for a particular position sought, or those who seek positions or shifts for which there is no present vacancy. The person to whom Ms Follett referred yesterday was an enrolled nurse who sought a position in a surgical/medical ward or an operating theatre. There were at that time no vacancies for enrolled nurses in either of
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