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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1882 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

That is the real issue. Let us, for the sake of the argument, give Mrs Carnell a bit of the benefit of the doubt here. Let us say that she is being entirely truthful when she says that she found out only when Mr Berry put out his press release and she went and asked, "What is going on here? How can this be so?". Let us give Mrs Carnell the benefit of the doubt on that.

Mrs Carnell: No; that is what Dr Hughes said.

MR WHITECROSS: That invites the question: How was it, as Mr Berry said, that she had these figures in front of her, month after month, and did not ask, "Why are our figures lower than their figures?". She castigates Mr Berry for not having asked for these figures when he was the Health Minister; yet, for month after month, Mrs Carnell published these figures and she never said to her department, "How come these figures show that we are doing fewer operations than were done under the previous Government?".

Mr Humphries: But she did. That is how she found out about it.

MR WHITECROSS: She did not, until Mr Berry drew it to her attention. Mr Speaker, the fact is that Mrs Carnell did not discover this for herself until Mr Berry brought it to her attention. So let us have none of this talk about why Mr Berry did not ask. The question is: Why did Mrs Carnell not ask? But, Mr Speaker, let us go to the other question. According to Dr Hughes on the radio this morning, they had known about this since December last year.

Mrs Carnell: No; that is not what he said.

MR WHITECROSS: It is.

Mrs Carnell: How could he? He was not even here.

MR WHITECROSS: It was December the year before; I am sorry. I stand corrected by Mrs Carnell.

Members interjected.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The house will come to order. Mr Whitecross has the floor.

MR WHITECROSS: Thank you, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Members, you will have the chance, if you want to participate in the debate, to get to your feet.

MR WHITECROSS: The ABC asked Mrs Carnell yesterday:

Do you believe that the officials who found those figures for you genuinely only found the double-count in meeting your request?

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