Page 3872 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 October 1991
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I support the motion. However, I have one difficulty. It is interesting to note that, as far as I am aware, no-one today gave any consideration to who would be staffing this committee, whether there would be any staff available in the committee office and, if none were, what would have to be forgone for this committee to come forward. I do not think anyone consulted with the committee office. Had they done so, perhaps they may have found that it would be rather difficult. I am sure something will have to be forgone.
It is all very well for select committees to be proposed. Some time last year I wanted to establish a select committee to look into tourism strategy for the next five years and beyond. The reason given at that time for it not being appropriate was that there would be some difficulty with the staffing arrangements. It is funny how things change. Again, there are a lot of committees operating at the moment and a lot of reports have to be handed down before the end of the year. I hope that none of those is going to have to be put on the back burner, so to speak. An enormous amount of work has already been done in those committees, and it would be unfortunate if that were the case.
I will support the motion; but, with the workload I have for my other committees, I am not proposing that I be one of the members of the committee.
DR KINLOCH (5.17): I was happily willing to accept not speaking earlier today, but now I have a chance to come back to that.
Mr Berry: I do not recall you being very happy about it.
DR KINLOCH: What I was not happy about was not having a chance to talk about when we were going to deal with this matter. I accepted Mr Stefaniak's motion. There is a strong benefit to the community in making effective use of our committee system; so, as in other matters, I support this select committee, which has at least two months to do its job.
As to the problems described by Mr Berry, I make the point that if, for example, I were on this committee I would be listening to all the views that were put forward. The committee is an investigative committee; it does not prejudge anything. If Mr Berry wants to put his views before that committee, he can do so. I would certainly undertake to look at this with an open mind.
I felt that the Estimates Committee - and much was said about the Estimates Committee - turned into a kind of shooting war between Mr Berry and Mr Humphries. That rather got in the way of getting out the evidence about the beds. I would like to hear doctors and nurses, not bureaucrats, telling us about the beds. I want to hear
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