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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1891 ..

MR BERRY (12.53): I will speak to the amendment, Mr Speaker. The amendment was tailor made for the Liberals, because it talks about misleading this house. Mrs Carnell is the one who brought the figures in here and claimed that they were gospel, not me. It is as simple as that. The argument is that there has been a misleading of this house. There has been none by me. I know that some on the crossbenches are not so happy about censuring Mrs Carnell on this issue; but the fact of the matter is that, if there is to be a censure, it ought to be against the person who brought the misleading information into this house. If the Liberals were fair dinkum about these figures that were produced by somebody at Woden Valley Hospital and about the alleged glitch in them, then they would move a motion of censure which read something like this:

That this house censure Mr Berry for the figures which were produced at Woden Valley Hospital when he was Minister umpteen years ago.

That would not go down too well in here, I suspect. I do not think it would even get a run. That would be about the only sensible motion you could move, if in fact what has been claimed about the figures is true. Mr Speaker, it is a nonsense.

It is also a nonsense to compare this motion to the previous censure motion to which Mrs Carnell was subjected some time ago. It was about two issues. One was recklessly misleading this house as the Minister and the other was the management of the health budget. Mr Speaker, that motion was about the Minister making strong statements about something which turned out to be untrue and about budget management in Health, as I recall. Look at the situation here. I am not the Minister. In this case, I brought nothing at all into this place which could have misled it. Mrs Carnell is the Minister. She brought the figures in. They are the figures that the Liberals now claim have misled. It is a nonsense argument to say that I am deserving of censure because of something which occurred in the hospital at the time I was Minister, because nobody on this side of the house brought those figures in here and said, "They are gospel". Mrs Carnell was the one who brought them in here and said that they were gospel.

Mr Humphries: You did yesterday, in question time.

MR BERRY: Mr Humphries has still got himself hooked on this asking a question line that he tried to run. For heaven's sake, I do not think I can recall anybody having been censured for misleading the house when they asked a question. That is a beauty.

Mr Humphries: Does "the Vietnamese nurses" ring any bells?

MR BERRY: That was for racist remarks. Mr Speaker, the facts of the matter are that I have not misled this house in relation to the figures to which the Liberals refer. It is just a nonsense censure motion. The amendment which my colleague the Leader of the Opposition has moved is tailor made for the Liberals. They should join with us and support that one, because it is really about figures which have, in effect, misled this house; but, if they are not bent on supporting us on that one, neither should they support the censure motion against me.

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