Page 3680 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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The Minister has responded to every one of those allegations. On the particular issue of bed numbers, he has refuted those allegations. Every time the issue has been raised in this house, the Minister has come back with the advice that he has had on the issue and has put it before the house.
I do not believe that in any way this Assembly could persuade itself that the Minister has knowingly, recklessly or willingly misled the house. There is simply no suggestion that that has happened. If you look at the motion that Mrs Carnell has moved, you will find that it is a rather strange one. If you look at House of Representatives Practice, Madam Speaker, that book deals with motions of want of confidence and censure motions pretty much as one and the same thing. In other words, they are the most serious motions that a parliament can entertain against one of its members. I would expect that, if you were to regard this issue very seriously, then the motion would not contain the word "misrepresent"; that it would assert a far stronger offence by the Minister. Yet there is no such assertion; there is no assertion that the Minister has misled the house; there is no assertion that he has knowingly, recklessly or willingly provided the Assembly with false or incorrect information. Even speakers opposite have said that they accept that the Minister has put forward the advice that he has received.
Madam Speaker, I believe that the Liberal Party really has devalued the currency of censure motions. As I have said before, they use them far too often. If they had wanted a serious debate on this issue, they could have raised it as a matter of public importance. They have not done that. They had the opportunity to do so today, and they raised industrial relations. Why not have this issue debated as a matter of public importance? Madam Speaker, the reason, of course, is that they are after another scalp. Mrs Carnell is after another scalp, pure and simple.
I believe that the censure motion, itself, is inappropriate. It is simply not the case that there has been put before this house the evidence that would in any way support a censure motion. I do want to point out that, on previous occasions, when Mr Connolly or I have found ourselves to be in error, to have made a mistake or to have not provided all the information, then both Mr Connolly and I have not hesitated in correcting that situation. We have both done it. Mr Connolly has done it repeatedly. That is a measure of the integrity that he brings to this job. It is very regrettable that there has been this attempted slur on his performance. It is not a slur which is warranted in any way, in my opinion.
I do want to address the general question of bed numbers, Madam Speaker. It is the case that throughout this debate we have all become aware that there are different ways of counting beds, and that beds might not always be beds; they might be couches; they might be chairs; they might be cots; they might be humidicribs or whatever. I am no expert on this. I freely admit that I would not have a clue how it is done, because it is well beyond my detailed knowledge as a Minister in this Government. There are clearly different ways of doing it, and there are different purposes for doing it. Some are for the Medicare agreement, some are for the nursing home funding arrangements, and so on. It is not as if this is a straightforward matter where the Minister has simply fudged the figures. He has not. If there has been a change in the way that beds have been counted, that change has come to light. That is all I can say. Madam Speaker, I find that completely unremarkable and certainly unworthy of a censure motion.
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