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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1866 ..

Mr Whitecross: On Mrs Carnell's figures.

MR HUMPHRIES: On figures Mrs Carnell published, yes; but from Mr Berry's time in office - figures which Mr Berry's own department produced. Mr Berry's own department produced those figures. They were his figures. He was responsible for those figures.

Why do I say that he was responsible for those figures? Why was he responsible for those figures? Members may recall that, on 28 March this year, Mr Berry came into this place and got leave for Mr Whitecross to move a motion. That motion read as follows:

That this Assembly censures the Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care for recklessly misleading this house over the claimed savings arising from the visiting medical officer contracts.

That was what was claimed. Mr Whitecross said:

... this is an extremely serious matter for the ACT.

Both of them accused Mrs Carnell of misleading the house. Members will recall that in the course of that debate there was a question about what projected savings were being made from VMO contracts in the course of the 1995-96 budget. Mr Berry said that Mrs Carnell had promised $2m worth of savings. Mrs Carnell made the comment in her defence that she was relying upon figures produced by her department. Does that sound familiar?

Mr Whitecross: Someone else's fault, again.

MR HUMPHRIES: Produced by her department. Yes, that is true; produced by somebody else. Mrs Carnell did come into this place and she interjected upon Mr Berry:

How was I supposed to know that your cost model was wrong?

She said that the cost model being used was the same one as Mr Berry had used in office, and she relied upon the cost model. She interjected:

How was I supposed to know that your cost model was wrong?

Mr Berry's response was:

Because you are the Minister for Health, Mrs Carnell. You are the one that came in here and said that you had the savings. You created the atmosphere in this place and attempted to convince all of us that you had ...

Blah, blah, blah; in that case, a $2m saving. That is precisely what Mr Berry attempted to do in this place as well - to convince people that we had reduced throughput through the hospital system, based on a lie. That was based on the lie that 3,749 operations had taken place in this hospital system - whereas 3,749 operations had not taken place at all.

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