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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2424 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

In Health, I believe using our money better means moving money from critical care into such areas as mental health, better postnatal care, not spending money on buildings that are half empty, and certainly not spending money on running a nursing home that continues to run at a quite substantial loss when the not-for-profit or private sector can run it quite adequately with levels of service that the Commonwealth determines are appropriate. We can use the money that we are currently losing on that facility to address problems such as mental health, waiting lists, postnatal care, postnatal depression - all the things that we agree are holes in our system. We cannot address the holes unless we address the problems, and that has been the approach we have taken in this budget. I think it is an appropriate approach, and I would like to see some positive approaches to Health for a change. I would like to see some vision, and that is what this budget holds.

MR BERRY (8.27): You would not think that this person was the same creature who, over the past few years, has been whirling around the ACT, serving it up to the health system, and trying to undermine the credibility of our health system in the Territory. She put so much pressure on the health system that the Board of Health resigned. It resigned because it had been politicised too much by this person over here, the Health Minister, Mrs Carnell. Day after day after day, Mrs Carnell was moaning about the people who worked in the health system.

Mrs Carnell: You are just showing what the problem is. You could not be positive even if your life depended on it.

MR BERRY: All of the time she was moaning about that she was moaning about patients. Now that she is in government, of course, all she seems to be worried about is dollars - dollars, not people.

Mr De Domenico: Play the person. Do not worry about the ball. Play the person always. When in doubt, kick a head. You political thug. You political Stalinist thug. You are a thug, Wayne.

MR SPEAKER: Order! We have all had a nice little sleepies. Now settle down again.

MR BERRY: Mr Speaker, would you ask Mr De Domenico to withdraw the imputation that I am a thug?

MR SPEAKER: Mr De Domenico, Mr Berry finds it offensive. Would you withdraw the remark.

Mr De Domenico: Therefore, he is happy with "Stalinist". I will leave "Stalinist" and I will withdraw "thug", if that upsets the precious little Mr Berry.

MR BERRY: Who cares, really? Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell, like a whirling dervish, was whizzing around our health system, criticising every part of it. In opposition she was terribly worried about clipboard nurses, Vietnamese nurses, Charles Wright, Annie Austin and Cheryl Vardon. She took on all those personality attacks in the process and at

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