Page 1658 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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attention. It deserves the coordinated support of this Assembly to lick it, and I am determined, as Minister, to make sure that it is licked within the life of this Government.
MR WOOD (3.55): Mr Deputy Speaker, this morning on radio, loudly and clearly, Mr Humphries said of the Residents Rally group that they are a spent force. At least in that he was correct. He said something right after all.
Mr Humphries: Mr Deputy Speaker, I raise a point of order. I am edified to hear my words quoted; but I do not see what this has to do with the motion presently before the chamber, which is a motion of censure of me.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: If he continues in that vein I will pull him up.
MR WOOD: Well, the Minister certainly admits to those words. Today, in the afternoon, this parliament is saying to Mr Humphries, regretfully, that he was not even a force to have been spent. After 10 minutes I will sit down and I will wait for Mr Collaery to stand up and defend the Health Minister. I wonder whether he will do that. I wonder whether Mr Collaery will get up and tell us why he is so glad that he is in good health and does not have to go into one of our public hospitals. Mr Collaery has left the chamber for a short time. I hope it is only a short time. I challenge him to get up and defend his Minister, and perhaps spell out the doubts, the anxieties, he has about the health system in this Territory.
We had a remarkable argument just a short time ago from Mr Humphries, an argument which clearly acknowledges his failure in administering this system. He blamed it all on Rosemary Follett. He asked the Opposition Leader why the Opposition were not asking questions. I have sat in this chamber for two years, and I would say that Mr Wayne Berry and other members in this Assembly on this side of the house have asked hundreds of questions on health matters. In fact, if we went through and counted the questions we have asked, I would say that two-thirds of our questions have been directed to Mr Humphries, on a whole range of issues concerning health, and, of course, education. He asks why we have not asked questions. Why does he not attend to his portfolio?
He has, of course, tried to pass back to the seven months of the Follett Government and Mr Berry's administration the responsibility for this issue. I know Mr Berry well. There is one thing about Mr Berry that I think all in this chamber would agree with: He is a very determined person, and he does not give in easily. In the seven months of his administration of health he was determined and he did get on top of the health bureaucracy and of the portfolio. When he did uncover some problems, action was forthcoming immediately.
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