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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1875 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

I now turn to another basis of Mrs Carnell's claim. I think Mr Humphries referred to a press release which I issued - I will table it in due course, Mr Speaker - which reads:

In her first year as Health Minister Mrs Carnell failed to match last year's performance with over two thousand less operations being carried out at Woden Valley Hospital, Deputy Leader and Labor Health spokesperson Wayne Berry said today.

"In the Woden Valley Hospital monthly activity report for March -

they are the ones that come with all of these; so I am using Mrs Carnell's published information tabled in this chamber -

Mrs Carnell's falling theatre activity rates has again been shown up. From March 1994 to February 1995, 18,125 operations were conducted at Woden Valley Hospital and for the same period in 1995-96 under the Liberals with Mrs Carnell as Health Minister, 16,034 - 2095 fewer operations.

"In her budget speech Mrs Carnell promised that with an additional allocation of $2 million, an extra 600 operations would be performed ...

"And what did we get? Over 2000 fewer operations at Woden Valley Hospital.

This is all from the Woden Valley Hospital information bulletin tabled in this place. I went on to say:

Add this to Mrs Carnell's 7 extra beds alongside her promised 50, together with the biggest budget blow-out since self-government of $14.2 million worth of unapproved spending, and a hospital that was so clogged up by mismanagement that it couldn't receive emergency patients for 24 hours last week and you have enough reasons for Mrs Carnell to admit that this job is beyond her capabilities.

I agree, Mr Speaker, that that press release would sting. But it was based on the figures. I do not back away from that press release, Mr Speaker, because it was based on the figures that were produced by Mrs Carnell.

Mrs Carnell: No. They were produced by you.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell says that they were produced by me. Mrs Carnell, I refer to your January 1996 information bulletin, which I assume was tabled in this place. The figures were taken from that.

Mr Speaker, this morning we heard the chief executive of Health describing how he discovered that in December 1994 a change to the way operations were counted was implemented in the hospital system. That is according to him. I have not seen the evidence yet, and I will not be convinced until I do. After working with Mrs Carnell for

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