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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1890 ..

Mr Berry: They are not my figures.

MR DE DOMENICO: Mr Berry interjects, "They are not my figures". Mr Berry is saying, "Notwithstanding the fact that they were collated at the time I was Minister, notwithstanding the fact that they were published at the time I was Minister, they are not my figures". Whose figures were they, Mr Berry? They were not Mr Connolly's, at the beginning, because he was not the Minister for Health at the time. They were his later.

Of course they were Mr Berry's figures. They were his figures, based on his own standards. It was Mr Berry, Mr Censure Motion, who came into this place and said that Mrs Carnell should not have used a model, his model, that she should have known was flawed. Thereby he successfully convinced members of this Assembly to censure Mrs Carnell. On Mr Berry's own standards, the Assembly should find him responsible for figures collated, even if they were not published - let us forget for one moment about the fact that they were not published - during the time that he was the Minister.

Mr Wood said to himself, "If I speak gently and forget about the facts, perhaps people will believe me". Mr Speaker, the facts are quite clear. The Labor Party came in this morning expecting a censure motion at some time during the day. It was convenient for them, for all sorts of reasons, to bring it forward.

Mr Berry: Do you think this is fun?

MR DE DOMENICO: I will not take that on board. What happened? We had the censure motion. The facts before us are beyond doubt. They would tend to cause even members opposite to realise that Mr Whitecross's amendment is a nonsense. He is just trying to pull a rabbit out of the hat to make people forget.

The facts of the matter are very clear. Between November 1993 and December 1994, at a time when Labor were in government, there were two Ministers for Health. The first one was Mr Berry, and after the VITAB fiasco Mr Berry resigned and Mr Connolly took over. During that time, and only during that time, there was double-counting of figures in the Health Department. Not at times before then, as far as we know, or after that, but only during the time that Mr Berry and Mr Connolly were Health Ministers, was there double-counting. That is the fact. We would censure Mr Connolly, too, if he were here; but he is not - and good luck to him.

The facts are that during the time these two people - Mr Berry in particular, because he is here - were in control figures were double-counted. The question is: Who is responsible? On the basis of Mr Berry's own standards, Mr Berry is responsible - not Mrs Carnell, the Health Department, Mr Moore, Ms Tucker, Mr Kaine, Mr Humphries or me. Mr Berry has to take his own medicine. Obviously, we have to reject Mr Whitecross's amendment and accept the motion before us.

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