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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1233 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

the community's money has been poured into a stadium that is little more than a publicity stunt. It is good to see that the community is a wake-up to this stunt, and while ever that stadium is there it will be a constant reminder of the failures of Chief Minister Kate Carnell.

Mrs Carnell and her colleagues pushed ahead with the restrictions on trading hours, and I raise that in the context of jobs. The community was well aware of the impact of the trading hours move by the Government. The Government callously pushed on with the trading hours issue, against the wishes of the community, in the recognition that it would cost jobs, but without any compassion at all. Mrs Carnell and her colleagues have shown that their priorities are all wrong. Financial management is not a priority. Presentation is the issue for Mrs Carnell. A cheap picture in the media is all that she seems to pursue.

It is with this in mind that we come to examine this year's budget, and what do we see? The Chief Minister has learnt nothing. Mrs Carnell has shown in this budget that she intends to go on in exactly the same way as she has since she became leader of the Liberal Party: Make glib promises, then break them. Ignore the economic realities, develop no policies to cope with our community's needs, but just keep on the same path, no matter what happens. In effect, allow this Territory to decline. This budget is the third from Kate Carnell, and it no more addresses the ACT's problems than did the first two. We have heard a lot from Mrs Carnell, but the solutions she speaks about never translate into actions. It is all talk, as many people in the community have come to understand. Mrs Carnell does not seem to have worked out yet that it takes a little more action than just trying to talk up the economy.

Nowhere has the failure of the Carnell Government been more evident than in health. Mrs Carnell came to government on a bunch of promises on health. They included such things as better management to cut costs, increased services, increased bed numbers, not closing health centres, cutting waiting lists, delivering a cardio-thoracic unit. She made certain promises in her first budget in relation to those matters. She has delivered only one, and that was to cut waiting lists; but at what cost? All the others are broken. The costs in health have been huge and, even now, the waiting list situation is in doubt because the Chief Minister has identified that there are some sorts of counting problems with the figures she has released. There has obviously been a review of waiting list numbers in the health system, and Mrs Carnell's own figures have fallen into disrepute.

The oft repeated promise to cut health costs was the first casualty of the Carnell Government. Mrs Carnell worked out that, if you move to cut costs in health, some bad publicity comes with it. The easier option was to throw the community's money at it and to save herself the trouble. Mr Speaker, $1m was wasted on the Booz Allen and Hamilton report. The Auditor-General revealed that the promised $3m saving on VMO fees had been given away by Mrs Carnell, handed back to the VMOs. The most highly paid visiting medical officers in the country were clearly let off the hook. After all the hard work that had been done by the previous Government in

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