Page 2191 - Week 07 - Thursday, 6 June 1991
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Mr Speaker, I have to go back to Mr Humphries, the Minister who seemingly does not know what is going on in his portfolio. He demanded that Labor tell him of the details of its plans. Mr Humphries, we are all judged by our performance. We are here to look at the Chief Minister's performance, which you will not defend. I think we have a situation where the Government has treated everybody in the community with contempt, and, dare I say it, in some cases members of the Alliance Government.
The Chief Minister has been caught out. There is no question about that. In spite of the repeated failures by his Minister for Health to come to grips with his portfolio, the Chief Minister has failed. Our hospital systems should have been relieved of the attention of Mr Humphries. I think they would have suffered less if that had been the case. Mr Kaine, the Treasurer, had to read about the financial chaos in the health portfolio in the Canberra Times. Would you believe it? Only the day before in this Assembly he was denying that there was anything wrong. He told us that all was well and that if anything was wrong he would have been told. I am glad the Canberra Times got onto this. Whilst the Chief Minister is the one who is the subject of scrutiny today, he has had some lead in his saddlebags with his ministry; but what must be said is that it is the ministry that he chose and refused to change.
I need to outline the most important features of hospital disasters and slack budgetary control under Mr Kaine's Health Minister. In 1989, as I have said before, the Chief Minister said:
We will proceed with hospital redevelopment plans and accelerate financial planning arrangements.
How many times has the Alliance Health Minister had to apologise to this house for getting it wrong? The Minister for Health has persistently come into this house and made incorrect statements on both health and education. He has been caught out, and I ask you, Mr Speaker: How many times has he had to apologise?
The December 1989 Treasury report sat around gathering dust, Mr Speaker, while this Minister sat on his hands and Mr Kaine watched, until the budget had blown out by $17m. Ultimately the budget blow-out was raised by Labor. I recall clearly that it was denied by both the Chief Minister and the Health Minister, and it took the Canberra Times to tell them. That is what I find astounding in all of this, Mr Speaker. They got it wrong in the Assembly, and again what did the Health Minister say? In December 1989 he promised to act immediately to implement the recommendations of the Treasury team which uncovered the hospital mess, in line with the Chief Minister's promise on 7 December; but Mr Enfield, whom Mr Humphries sent in, informed us in his report that neither the Minister for Health nor the Chief Minister would act to address the
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