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I certainly warn Independent and Green members of this Assembly to watch for this tendency in future. Mrs Carnell constantly tries to put the blame on somebody else and refuses the fundamental test of being in executive government, and that is accepting the blame. You made the decision irrevocably to get out of a government role in nursing home care. That is a fundamental issue, for all the reasons Mr Berry and I have given, and it alters for all time the way this service is being provided.

You made the decision to get out of providing general practitioner services. It is true that, very publicly, we used two unfilled GP positions in the health centres to fund the very important initiative of a chair of general practice, which will very significantly improve standards of general practice care across the whole of the ACT; but we continued a commitment to the provision of salaried general practitioner services, just as we continued a commitment to government nursing home services. We had some nonsense from Mr De Domenico saying that Labor was attacking the role of the various churches in providing nursing home care.

Mr Hird: That is not nonsense.

MR CONNOLLY: Stuff and nonsense. As I said at the outset, we have maintained a commitment to a balance in this sector between government and non-government provision. You are the people who have made this fundamental decision to upset that balance, to destroy that balance, and to get rid of any countervailing role for the Government in these two crucial sectors. Instead of accepting your responsibility for making that decision - - -

Mrs Carnell: The Commonwealth Government runs both of them.

MR CONNOLLY: Now it is the Commonwealth Government's fault. It is always somebody else’s fault, Mrs Carnell. That broken record of blame-shifting is something that people in this Assembly and this community are going to get heartily sick of.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I think there was a suggestion at one stage that we divide the question.

Mr Moore: Under standing order 133.

Mrs Carnell: Yes, I am happy to.

Motion (by Ms Tucker) agreed to:

That the question be divided.

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