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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 756 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

budget blow-out in Canberra; but I am sure that we will hear some of that rhetoric from Mrs Carnell, because that is the logic she has been applying to this - that somehow or other it is someone else's fault. Again and again, it is someone else's fault. This week it was Laurie Brereton's fault.

Mr Speaker, the fact is that, as we said throughout the industrial dispute, the industrial dispute was something that she was dragging out, that she was provoking, that she was costing the community with. This morning we hear the reason for that. Of course, Mr Berry must claim some credit here, because he predicted this. This morning Mrs Carnell is saying that the reason why she has all these financial problems, the reason why she has got exactly nowhere in reforming the Health Department, is that it is all the unions' fault; it is all the fault of the industrial dispute. So, she provokes an industrial dispute and then she turns around this morning and says, "It is all their fault that I cannot manage my health budget". Mr Speaker, that is the kind of thing we are up against with Mrs Carnell. That is why the community has a right to be so concerned. That is why members in this Assembly should be so concerned about what has happened in relation to the visiting medical officers.

Mr Speaker, my colleague Mr Berry will go into this in a great deal more detail. Mrs Carnell's record in this matter is just appalling. Mrs Carnell is not smiling at the moment, and she has no reason to smile, because she has mismanaged the VMO negotiations; she has mismanaged her health budget; she has mismanaged the ACT budget; she has blown the confidence of the community; she has imposed needless pain on the entire community with cuts in services again and again; and now the bad news today, Mr Speaker, is that the Canberra community are not even going to get any benefit from it, because she has mismanaged the budget as well.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (10.49): Mr Speaker, I am confident that, as this side of the house did show some restraint, shall we say, the other side will do so also. I think, Mr Speaker, that it is extremely important - - -

Mr Wood: Come off it! What nonsense!

MR SPEAKER: Most showed the restraint.

Mr Wood: I do that all the time.

MRS CARNELL: It is true; Mr Wood actually does show restraint all the time.

Mr Speaker, what I will do now is actually address the issue rather than just go through a whole heap of diatribe. I will have a look at the real issue here, because the issue of this VMO contract situation has a very long history and I think it is important to set out the whole sorry history of the VMO case that I inherited in taking up government. The history goes back to 1986, when the then Department of Health challenged the contract arrangements that were established with Medicare in 1975 under the Labor Government. Despite more than a year of negotiations, in March 1987 the relationship between the VMOs and the Commonwealth Government broke down, to the point - - -

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