Page 1677 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 30 April 1991
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affairs we have. Mr Berry clearly has indicated, in his own motion, that, as Minister, he had dragged the system into crisis. He left it in crisis. It was in crisis until such time as this Assembly quite sensibly kicked him out of the office.
We have heard a remarkable number of speeches. I will not even bother commenting on the points raised by Mr Connolly because, frankly, they were high school debate stuff. They were simply things that do not even need to be addressed. Mr Connolly is so ashamed of himself that I see that he has now left the Assembly.
The interesting words in this debate so far - I notice that Mr Connolly is back - were those spoken by the person who is probably the best debater on the Labor side, namely, Mr Wood. If ever there was a backhanded slap at colleagues, Mr Wood's speech identified it. In his speech he bagged Mr Berry. He bagged his own government colleagues for the atrocious mishandling of the health system that they exhibited during the time that they were its custodians.
Mr Wood was trying to attack my colleague Mr Humphries. He was saying that he, along with everyone else in the Territory, was awaiting "a crusading, challenging Minister" who would take over the job and fix the health system that was in such a parlous state. What did he say? He said that Mr Humphries neglected to carry out the job that needed to be done. In other words, Mr Wood himself identified, as did Mr Berry in his own motion, that the health system was - I use the word "was" - in a bad state, a state of crisis, in December 1989, when this Minister took on the responsibility of fixing up the mess that was left by that man opposite.
Mr Humphries: That is right, Mr Berry.
MR DUBY: That is right. Strangely enough, following that, having identified that all these problems needed to be fixed, Mr Wood said that this Minister, Mr Humphries, is the Minister who did nothing. Those of us who follow the debates in this Assembly will realise that, for a Minister who does nothing, he certainly is asked a lot of questions by those opposite about the things he does do. Almost every question time since this Alliance Government has been in power has been devoted to Mr Humphries and the things he has done.
Let us just look at the things Mr Humphries has done. He, as Minister, moved to streamline health administration through the establishment of a new ACT Board of Health to take responsibility for the planning and provision of health services in Canberra. Once again, that was something that Mr Berry was incapable of doing. Mr Humphries implemented a recent independent review of the nurses' career structure which will overcome most of the problems that have been inherent in the health system during all that time, and for many years - something which
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