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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 10 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 2968 ..

Mrs Carnell: How can you slash and burn and spend $20m more? You cannot do both.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell interjects and says, "You cannot do both". She has slashed and burnt out in the community, closed down a couple of health centres and got rid of all of the salaried medical officers, and still she does not have control of her hospital system - unlike the Labor Party, which over a period of years brought the books back into balance. We exercised more and more control, to the point where we balanced the books - something never hitherto achieved. Mrs Carnell's budget has blown out to double that of Mr Humphries, and he had the belt before - $20m. What an outrageous position!

Mr Speaker, people out there in the community remember Gary Humphries's attempts to close down health centres and how he failed. They will remember for a longer period the fact that Mrs Carnell promised, hand on heart, "I will not affect Melba Health Centre", and then closed it from under them.

Mrs Carnell: Oh!

MR BERRY: She goes, "Oh!". Too bad for the community! Across Canberra, Labor had a continued commitment to the 12 community medical practitioners and the bulk-billing services that they provided. They are gone. They are history. They are something that the archaeologists might talk about. Mrs Carnell got rid of those. We have a hospital system with an Emergency Department which, at times, is pressed. One thing I would like Mrs Carnell to do the next time she is out at the Emergency Department is to impress upon them the need to reduce waiting times, because waiting times are an issue of continual complaints in emergency departments - - -

Mrs Carnell: We get one complaint per thousand patients.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell, come on! Do not tell me that you have not had a complaint about waiting times in the hospital Emergency Department. Stop kidding yourself. There are hundreds of people who are unhappy about the waiting times in that Emergency Department. Since you closed down that important service out there in the community, you ought to make alternative arrangements so that people can get into the Emergency Department without long waits, some of which give rise to the suspicion that they are artificial. You need to do a little bit of work on that issue.

Mr De Domenico: Why don't you give up, Wayne?

Mrs Carnell: It is all right. I will just fax it to the emergency people. They will love that.

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell says, "I will tell the emergency people". Mrs Carnell should address her attention to reducing waiting lists in the Emergency Department and providing proper resources for the Emergency Department workers.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

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