Page 3398 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 11 October 1994
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Madam Speaker, in conclusion, may I just indicate that the games are proposed to be held at the end of Floriade, so that the last weekend of Floriade and the weekend following and the five days in between would be the nine days of the Masters Games in 1997. The reason for that is to provide an added attraction, if you like, for people who will be attending the Masters Games to come to Canberra earlier and take part in the very substantial occasion of Floriade.
Woden Valley Hospital - Bed Numbers
MR HUMPHRIES: My question is also to the Minister for Health. In answer to a question in the Assembly on 16 June about bed numbers, which has already been referred to, the Minister said:
The move to reopen those 24 beds will immediately bring us up to some 600 beds in Woden Valley Hospital. Calvary remains at 192.
I ask the Minister: Given that the annual report of his department - and I assume that he has read that - shows that at the end of June Calvary Hospital had available only 172 public beds, was he misleading the Assembly, or did he simply misunderstand that aspect of his portfolio?
MADAM SPEAKER: Members, I again direct your attention to standing order 117(d). You cannot ask questions which "reflect on or are critical of the character or conduct of those persons whose conduct may only be challenged in a substantive motion". You know as well as I do that you need a motion of no confidence or some other motion against the Minister if you want to call him a liar, which is essentially what is happening. The Minister may proceed to answer the question, but I am cautioning members to take heed of that standing order.
MR CONNOLLY: One expects this sort of sly approach. I produce a document, which is part of a briefing note and which was the one that I was referring to in the answer to Mrs Carnell's question. According to my recollection, this document that I cited yesterday was the last document that I had seen on it. It tells me that, as at September 1994 - I do not have the precise date in September, but it tells me "September 1994"; I think all the Opposition's questions have been referring to September - at Woden Valley Hospital we had 584 beds.
Mrs Carnell: You did not, you know.
MR CONNOLLY: "You did not, you know", says Mrs Carnell. The advice I get from the Department of Health, over the signature of Dr Gregory, who is the head of the corporate and strategic development area, tells me that in September 1994 we had 584 beds at Woden Valley Hospital, 192 beds at Calvary Public Hospital, and 11 beds at Queen Elizabeth II; giving a total number of 787 beds in the public sector. At the same time, we had 170 beds at John James.
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