Page 3674 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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I can understand why the Minister and his officials have retreated behind the barricades and are not going to concede that there is anything wrong with the situation. I am not going to debate the argument about whether the figures are right, wrong or indifferent. All I do know is that, for a long period of time, the Leader of the Opposition and others have been asking the Minister for information about bed numbers - a very crucial figure, because people go to the hospital and they cannot get a bed.
Mr Connolly: You have always had my best information given to you.
MR KAINE: The problem is, Minister, that, every time the information has been asked for, the answer is different. I sit in this place, and I listen to the questions and the answers; I am confused; I do not know, even now, how many beds there really are in our hospital system. Minister, you have not told me. Every time we ask the question, we get a different answer. Every time we query the answer, we get a different explanation as to why the figures are what they are. One gets the impression that there is a lot of the thimble and pea trick going on; you really do not know.
The thing that really concerns me, Minister, is that your defence rests on two factors. You said, first of all, "You cannot hold me accountable, because it is too hard to find out the actual bed numbers in our hospitals". That was one point you made. The other point was, "Because my officials tell me, and I pass it on to you, I am not responsible". What this is about is the accountability of the Government. Question time in this place is one of the very few techniques by which the Executive can be held accountable.
It is not acceptable for a Minister, after a prolonged period of questioning - not just today; over a period of days, weeks, months - about how many hospital beds there are, to come back with a different answer every time and a different explanation every time. At the end of the day he says, "You cannot hold me accountable, because it is too hard to identify how many beds I have in my hospital". Codswallop! Secondly, he says, "My officials tell me that that is so, and I accept it; but do not dare question my integrity or the integrity of my officials".
Mr De Domenico: Because if you do I will call you a silly little politician.
MR KAINE: That is right. Minister, you cannot have it that way. Either you are going to sit there and be accountable for the information that you present here, or you are going to shrug your shoulders and walk away and say, "I am responsible for nothing". If you take that view, you should resign, because that is not what responsible government is about.
I repeat, Madam Speaker: I have listened carefully, in light of my own lack of knowledge about what is happening in our hospital system; and that lack of knowledge remains; after repeated questioning of the Minister, I still do not know the answers. If he knows the answers, he should put them on the table. It is not good enough to say, "Come and ask me in the Estimates Committee", because he will not answer there either. In fact, in the past he has not answered these questions in the Estimates Committee. It is no longer called the Estimates Committee. When he fronts up, if he fronts up, before the budget review committee in a few days' time, I doubt that he will answer the question there either. It is simply not good enough. His argument that he is not accountable does
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