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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3710 ..

MR BERRY: I have accepted the convention in this debate. There has been no hold put on members in relation to their speeches in this debate.

Mr Humphries: Mr Speaker, how long is Mr Berry's extension for?

MR SPEAKER: Five minutes.

MR BERRY: I will need more than that. I will give notice now that I will need more than that to complete my speech. This is a serious issue.

MR SPEAKER: Just get on with it and you might not.

MR BERRY: If I do not get leave I will just have to move a motion in due course.

Not only did Mrs Carnell fail to make the promised savings. All of us people in this Assembly were convinced that that was all she would want. No more. She said, "$14.2m. I am being open and honest. I am telling the community. That is all I want - $14.2m". You all remember it, every one of you. Mr Speaker, by the end of the financial year the Minister for Health and Treasurer had to reveal that $14.2m was actually $22.3m. We were misled again. When Ms Tucker says that Mrs Carnell has misled us, she is right, she is dead right, because she has misled us, and not just once either. Mr Speaker, by the time the 1996-97 budget papers came out, between what Mrs Carnell estimated the previous year we were going to spend and what we are going to spend in this budget there is a gap of something like $37m. Where are the savings? They have evaporated.

These are the very important reasons why the Independents have to think very carefully about their vote on this Chief Minister. If they do not support this motion it is an endorsement for this Minister to keep up her current practices - that is, create massive debt and sell assets, all things that will be left for future governments and future generations to fix up. So there are massive implications involved in this decision today. That is another example of the contempt that this Minister exhibits towards the Assembly and the people of the ACT.

At the same time we have seen the Minister demonstrate her contempt of the standards required by her Federal colleague John Howard. An examination of the code of conduct documents for this Government and the Follett Government makes it clear that Mrs Carnell could not have taken on the role of Minister for Health under the previous Government's code of conduct but has done so under her own Government's new rules, which allow for the running of a business provided that the Minister is removed from day-to-day operations. She would have been sacked by John Howard, Mr Speaker, and she would have been sacked by Rosemary Follett too. Equally, Mrs Carnell could not hold the health portfolio under those conditions set by John Howard because of the reasons I have just set out. Conflict of interest can be perceived or actual, and good governance is served when both are avoided, irrespective of any tailor-made rule which may allow one or the other to occur. For the Chief Minister of this place to be caught in an area of potential conflict of interest is an outrage that the community should not be asked to tolerate.

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