Page 3667 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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MR CONNOLLY: Or recklessly. At all these points, when I have quoted numbers, I have produced the documentation to show the basis upon which I had been advised. Each day this week, you have queried it. I have gone away, had it checked, and come back and refuted it. You have queried something else. We go away, we have it checked, and we come back and refute it. You made the statement yesterday, last night, this morning through the media, and this afternoon at question time, "Ah, we have got you. As for those 20 nursing home beds at Calvary, that is a con. They were not really part of the system. You have misled us; you have conned us over that". I have tabled the documents to show that that was incorrect. (Extension of time granted)
All that leaves you then is the allegation that Mrs Carnell made in question time today, which is to the effect that the bed breakdowns, the figures that I provided yesterday, are wrong. I will go away and have all of that checked carefully and meticulously by senior officers, and I will come back on that in due course. The preliminary advice that I have is that it sounds about as dodgy as anything else that she said this week on this issue, but I will go away and have it checked carefully.
I would say to members that you do not have the basis of a censure motion here; what you probably have is the basis for some interesting and lively debate in the Estimates Committee about methodologies and the way we drive our methodology. While I agree that some of the substance of the debate today may seem a little silly, it is all driven by a desire to maximise the benefit for the ACT under the Medicare agreement. That may be a clumsy outcome. It may not be the best way to run a health system, as both the new Secretary to the Federal Department of Health and the Premier of Victoria, the leading conservative State, would agree - they come from opposite directions - but it is the system that applies and the one that we try to drive to get the best dollar benefit for the Territory.
The nub of the attack today is that I said in June that I would open 24 beds and have the resources for them from July. I did say that. I did have the resources. Each time that I have been asked, and I have been asked on a number of occasions by the media, I have reported how we have been going. The first time that I was asked on that in here, I gave a report on where we had gone. I said, "We have some 14 of them open now". I explained why we were having problems in getting staff for those other beds. Mrs Carnell now says, "You have not really got your 14". Again, all I can do is give to the house the best information that I have available from the department; and I have done that.
Mrs Carnell: That is what we have Ministers for.
MR CONNOLLY: Mrs Carnell, Ministers are not for running around Woden Valley Hospital counting beds manually. How the Liberals would deploy their resources is another matter. At every point where you have made allegations, to date we have come back and refuted them. You made a fool of yourself with your public statements over the Calvary beds, and I refuted that very effectively. Now you say, "Chuckle, chuckle; I knew that that was untrue". It has been refuted at every point. I will refute the other points; but I say to members, particularly to the Independent members, that the basis for a censure motion is just not here.
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