Page 1676 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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He then had the benefit of the report from the Follett Government and he has had the opportunity - for 18 months roughly - to act on that report. Clearly he has failed to do so. Clearly he has engineered - I think that might be the best way to put it - the resignation of Mr Bissett. Why is Mr Bissett resigning if the Government is delighted with the job he is doing? Mr Bissett is in the system that Mr Connolly referred to in his quotes from Professor Sir Ivor Jennings. He is the civil servant in the chain. Insofar as he has been put in a position where it is appropriate for him to resign, so too should Gary Humphries resign as Minister for Health. He set himself the challenge.
I did not go on to quote from what happened in December 1989 when, in fact, Mr Berry was forced to resign. Well, he was not forced to resign; he was removed from his ministerial position by a vote of this Assembly. In that debate Mr Humphries went on about the responsibilities that Mr Berry had failed to meet. Now he has failed to meet the same responsibilities, 18 months later, and it is time for him, not so much to face the music as far as this parliament is concerned, although that is the force that should carry it, but to face the music by the standards that he himself set. He was the one who set those standards. He was the one who drew attention to the problems that Mr Berry had. He was the one who said, "You have to resolve those problems". And he is the one who should stand up to it.
Mr Connolly: Hoist with his own petard.
MR MOORE: Ah, ha! The chances of Mr Humphries resigning are about as great as the chances of Mr Duby resigning earlier. I do not think they are very great at all. But he will, at least, have to face the ignominy of the fact that he has not done so.
MR DUBY (Minister for Finance and Urban Services) (4.53): Mr Speaker, today we are hearing the most nonsensical censure motion that this house, I think, will hear in its history. It is a bizarre motion. As my colleague Mr Collaery has pointed out, even the motion indicates the amount of thought and the amount of feeling - - -
Mrs Grassby: Mr Speaker, why is not the Minister here to - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order! That is not a valid point of order, Mrs Grassby.
MR DUBY: As I was saying, Mr Speaker, this is a bizarre motion. It indicates the amount of thought and feeling that has gone into this supposed censure. That the previous Minister for Health can draft a motion which says that the Assembly censures the current Minister for dragging the ACT hospital system deeper into crisis through his failures indicates, I think, just what a sad state of
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