Page 3684 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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Mr Humphries: I think it is incredible that he could be wrong, too.
MR DE DOMENICO: Yes. But what has Mr Connolly done? It appears as if Mr Connolly has gone out there and said, "Please, bureaucrats, go out and get me some advice that will protect me". Every time that he has been asked a question, Mr Connolly has gone into damage control mode. He has not said, "Listen, I do not know; but I am certainly going to find out. If you want a full briefing, I will give you one". He could have said that. We would not have asked any more questions. But, no; we asked questions; we got answers. We asked more questions, based on the answers we got; we kept getting different answers.
What does the community expect of politicians? The community expects that Mr Connolly, or any Minister, will not just willy-nilly accept any bit of advice that he gets from his bureaucrats. We have a sense of deja vu. That happened willy-nilly before, and it cost the particular Minister his position. It seemed to me, especially in the Chief Minister's defence, that the whole VITAB affair came back again. We were told then that there was nothing wrong.
I am going to now close my remarks, Madam Speaker, by saying that this is all about ministerial responsibility once again; this is all about making sure that, before someone comes into this place and gives us information, that information is checked and verified, because the community out there demands no less from us as members of this place or from the Minister that is responsible for a portfolio. It is not good enough for the Chief Minister to say, "This is all a frivolous, grubby little thing that people opposite are doing". It is not that at all. It is about this Assembly's right to be given correct information when it asks good questions of Ministers; it is also all about Ministers when they do not know answers, saying so and coming back and then giving us a good answer; and, when they do make mistakes, admitting that they have made mistakes and, therefore, that they are human. It is not all about going out there and defending oneself with any figures one can find, as long as the bottom line means, "I was right; go and do it".
We appear to have three different sets of answers, three different sets of figures. It has totally confused this Assembly. As far as I am concerned, nothing has been said yet by either Mr Connolly or Ms Follett to convince me that I should not be supporting the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition.
MS SZUTY (5.12): I would like to indicate to the Assembly at this stage that I will not be supporting the censure motion proposed by Mrs Carnell. There were three points that Mrs Carnell raised as part of her censure motion. The first one was that 24 beds were promised by Mr Connolly on 16 June 1994; the second related to paediatric bed numbers; and the third related to the total number of beds. In relation to that first point - that 24 beds were promised on 16 June 1994 - I would like to quote from two documents, Madam Speaker. The first is the Hansard of 16 June 1994. In response to a question from Mrs Carnell about Woden Valley Hospital bed numbers, Mr Connolly said:
Actually, it is 55 rather than 56; but never mind. Madam Speaker, as we speak moves are afoot to open some 24 additional beds. I hope that we will have them by 1 July.
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