Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2700 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, if Mr Berry were man enough, or woman enough, if you want to put it that way, he would apologise right now to this chamber; but, most importantly, Mr Speaker, he would get into his car and he would go out to the birthing centre and apologise. Those people this morning were absolutely devastated by the comments that were made. After all, Mr Speaker, this is the very same man who as Health Minister blew out four budgets, I think - was it four, Mr Berry? - in a row, to the tune of more than $40m. He not only blew out the budget; he closed 200 public hospital beds. The waiting list went up by 155 per cent, I think, under Mr Berry. To top it all off, he developed amnesia, I think, over about 4,000 phantom operations that he thought he had but really did not. Put simply, Mr Berry, you had a chance to fix the health budget and you blew it. That is really what it comes down to.

Mr Speaker, I think this kind of hysterical media release really reflects a much deeper problem on the other side of the chamber. It shows a kind of desperation, I believe, by Labor that is becoming more and more evident. It certainly has over the last couple of months. I wonder where that new deal is that was promised by President Whitecross over there when he swept into power earlier this year. Where is the vision, Mr Speaker? Where are the fresh ideas? Where are the ideas for generating jobs? All we have seen is this kind of media release. It is the sort of media release, Mr Speaker, that I think Terry Connolly's former press secretary would have been pretty proud of.

Yesterday we saw from those opposite that we were selling 97 schools. Mr Berry has put out press releases saying that all cancer patients were going to have to pay for their drugs and that pregnant women were going to end up on waiting lists; and now we see this one, Mr Speaker. I suppose I am fairly used to these kinds of statements, but they generate scare campaigns. The people that these sorts of media releases affect are not in this place to defend themselves. I do not think it is acceptable at all. No wonder people out there in the rest of the community really wonder sometimes about this Assembly. That sort of press release, a press release that says that the birthing centre is closed, with no evidence whatsoever, brings this Assembly into disrepute. I am sure that nobody in this Assembly, except possibly Mr Berry, would think that is okay.

Mr Kaine, the birthing centre is open. Babies are being born. In fact, one was born there this morning. If Mr Berry had bothered for one minute to check - to check his figures or to read the top of the page and find out that they were preliminary figures only, or to read the first page of the report and see that the figures in this particular area were incomplete - I hope, Mr Speaker, he would not have put out a press release that scared people.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .