Page 4011 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 16 December 1992
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MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (4.31): Madam Speaker, at the outset can I say that I have total confidence in the Minister for Health, Wayne Berry. I think that his behaviour in regard to notification of HIV/AIDS has been appropriate. It has, as we know, had the majority support of this house.
Mr Stevenson's motion, Madam Speaker, relies exclusively, it seems to me, on the evidence of one Dr Proudfoot. It was Dr Proudfoot whom Mr Stevenson quoted over and over again in his very lengthy speech. It is Dr Proudfoot's correspondence which Mr Stevenson has tabled before us today. I have heard Dr Proudfoot described as a medical practitioner. I have not heard him described as a lawyer at any stage. My only previous knowledge of Dr Proudfoot was in relation to his campaign to have funding ceased for the Women's Health Service in the ACT - an unsuccessful campaign, as it turned out. But, Madam Speaker, as I say, Dr Proudfoot is not a lawyer, as far as I am aware, and neither is Mr Stevenson.
I would like to address each part of Mr Stevenson's motion and refute each one of them in series. Part 1 of Mr Stevenson's motion alleges that Mr Berry "has flagrantly and persistently breached his statutory duty to uphold the rule of law by knowingly allowing illegal procedures to continue" et cetera. This is untrue. Madam Speaker, Mr Berry has acted appropriately on all occasions, and particularly in his dealings in relation to HIV and AIDS.
The fact is that, if this Assembly upholds part 1 of Mr Stevenson's motion, then it must move the same motion in relation to Mr Humphries, for the procedures used by Mr Berry until the law was changed were the procedures used by Mr Humphries in the 18 months that he was Minister for Health. I think that we must be very clear that that is the case, and that both Mr Humphries and Mr Berry were aware that that law needed to be changed. As it turned out, it was Mr Berry who changed the law. But let us be very clear that, for the 18 months Mr Humphries was Minister for Health, he used the same processes that Mr Berry had used up to this point. Madam Speaker, if there is any doubt in members' minds about the advice that went to Mr Humphries, I would like to quote from a document dated 25 March 1991. It is a minute to the Minister, then Mr Humphries, signed by Vin McLoughlin, Executive Director, Health Services Development. I will table the document.
Mr Wood: Initialled by Mr Humphries.
MS FOLLETT: It was seen by Mr Humphries and initialled by him. A paragraph of this document reads:
A number of interpretational problems have flowed from the wording of the Regulations.
The subject of the minute is "Notifiable diseases/AIDS/HIV". It continues:
Currently, HIV is not deemed as a notifiable disease though information is provided in coded form for epidemiological purposes. Legal opinion on the interpretation of the Regulation varies.
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