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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (18 April) . . Page.. 1076 ..

Mr De Domenico: Mr Speaker, under standing order 61, would you remind Mr Berry that he is not allowed to interrupt anybody when they are trying to answer a question? Perhaps you might have a look at that, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I do uphold that point of order. Continue, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I have a great deal of pleasure in answering the question again. I have made it quite clear in this place that the capital - - -

Mr Berry: Where is it coming from, exactly?

MRS CARNELL: I have made it clear exactly where it is coming from. The capital works budget has been underspent and the central redundancy pool has been underspent. It is quite simple where it comes from. The capital works budget, I think, is as much as $14m underspent and the central redundancy pool will very easily pick up the rest.

Mr Berry: Which programs?

MR SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Berry: And how much?

MR SPEAKER: Ignore it, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I have made it extremely clear - - -

Mr Hird: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to standing order 39. Standing order 39 simply says:

When a Member is speaking, no other Member may converse or make any noise or disturbance to interrupt that Member.

Mr Berry is continually doing just that.

MR SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order.

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, the approach that we have taken is very accountable and open. It is exactly the opposite to the approach taken under the previous Government. When Mr Berry was Health Minister the health budget blew out every single year for four years. It was four out of four for Mr Berry. Mr Berry has the absolute gall to get up in this place and make comments about incompetence and so on. He even suggested that I should resign for having one health budget that blows out. Does that mean that he should have resigned four times, Mr Speaker? We have been quite open that this health budget is not acceptable. I stood up in this place and explained exactly what we were going to do about it. Mr Berry did it four times in a row. At the same time he decreased the number of public hospital beds by 200. He allowed the waiting list to more than double and he blew out his budget as well. Maybe he should have resigned eight times to make up for all of those sorts of things.

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