Page 4599 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 20 November 1991
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In the ACT, as elsewhere in Australia, there are no accurate data on the number of women or men dependent on tranquillisers. However, a large scale community prevalence study in the United States found that approximately 1.1 per cent of the adult population was dependent on tranquillisers. In Australia it is estimated nationally that some 17 per cent of women and 11 per cent of men used tranquillisers ...
and so on. All of this detailed information was formulated by departmental officers in response to a question at the Estimates Committee. To say in this motion, "persistent behaviour in contempt of the Assembly and its committees, exemplified in his obstinate refusal to respond to legitimate questions", is an absolute outrage. It is misleading, in the extreme. It is misleading, in the extreme, to make those sorts of allegations. It is untrue for those allegations to be made.
All questions asked were answered. Mind you, I could tell by the look on the faces of the questioners that sometimes they did not like the answers. Well, that is the nature of politics. If you do not like the heat, get out of the kitchen. There is political information and political messages in answers from politicians.
Much was made out of the issue of financial reports from the Board of Health and my alleged refusal to provide these. For the very first time in this Assembly two monthly reports on finances in the Board of Health were made available to the Estimates Committee. That has never been done before, and the people opposite whinge.
Mr Kaine: You did not ask for them when you were in opposition.
MR BERRY: I asked questions in this place about the budget blow-out, and neither the Chief Minister nor the Minister for Health knew. That is the extent of the information that one used to get from the former Ministers opposite. It is very clear that the information that was provided to the Estimates Committee was way in excess of the information that was ever provided by these members when they were in government. Again, I go back to the firebug squealing about the smoke.
Mr Speaker, I provided figures for August and September showing the budgetary performance of the Board of Health. They were figures which I was quite happy to provide. Since then, Mr Speaker, I have received this letter from the chairman of the board, Mr Service. He makes it very clear that he is unhappy about the board's management of the hospital system being interfered with by politicians. His letter says:
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