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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1869 ..

Mr Humphries: How do you know?

Mr Berry: Because your Health officials said it on radio this morning.

MS FOLLETT: On the evidence provided by Mrs Carnell yesterday and by - - -

MR SPEAKER: Order! Ms Follett has the floor. Members of the Opposition, I remind you that you are not really helping your own colleague by your constant interjections drowning her out.

MS FOLLETT: It is apparent to me, and it must be apparent to other members, that Mrs Carnell has known for quite some time that the figures provided to her and published by her were inaccurate. That fact was clarified this morning on ABC radio by Dr Hughes, as chief executive officer of the Department of Health, when he said that they had known for some time that the figures did not tally and had gone looking for a cause. Nevertheless, a period of about a year had elapsed in which the figures, the apparent inaccuracy, had been repeated. I repeat that, for the time when I responsible for the Government, and the time when Mr Berry was the Minister for Health, he could not have been held responsible for figures which he did not produce and certainly did not publish. The evidence is here.

I would also like to say that Mr Berry was, in fact, the Minister for a minority of the period which is under question here, and Mr Connolly was, in fact, the Minister for the majority of that time. If Mr Humphries's motion had any credibility whatsoever, he would have included Mr Connolly's name in it. Why has he not? I would put it to the Assembly that Mr Connolly is flavour of the month with the Government; they cannot see any point in attacking him, but they can see point, as always, in attacking Mr Berry.

I think members need to bear in mind the fact that the comments made by Mr Berry on this matter were made entirely on evidence supplied and published by Mrs Carnell. If there is any inaccuracy in Mr Berry's comments as a consequence of Mrs Carnell's inaccuracy, then I am sure that he regrets it; but it is a legitimate role of members in this place to make such comments. We have yet to hear Mrs Carnell apologise for producing and publishing inaccurate material. Mr Berry most certainly has not ever done that. If members opposite had any case at all, they would have produced the evidence.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (11.35): Mr Speaker, a number of comments have been made this morning, but I think this is really just about Mr Berry and his colleagues over on the other side of this place trying to hide a very real problem for Mr Berry. Why else would those opposite want to go ahead with a censure motion without the briefings? Last night Mr Berry asked for some information from the archives, which of course had to be obtained overnight; but he determined that he wanted to go ahead with this before he received the information from the archives. We had organised briefings for lunchtime, for those on the crossbenches who wanted them. But, for all of that, those opposite wanted to go ahead with this matter simply because they thought that they might be able to fuzzy the issue here and confuse the issue so that the crossbenchers may not actually be able to understand exactly what happened on an issue that is actually quite complex.

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