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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1278 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

Then there was this disgraceful scare campaign on housing for the disabled that I have already spoken about and the equally unfounded claims about unspent money from the Kick Start program that was somehow going to be pulled out of the scheme. Again, it was absolutely wrong. Mr Speaker, the interesting thing about these things is that all of them, all of these approaches, potentially scare people. They have the potential to make problems for people who are least able in our society. I think it might be that Ms Reilly is going to the Wayne Berry school of media management. That is the school that says, "Shoot from the hip. Do not worry about the facts. Do not worry about whom you hurt. Possibly, in the long term, the facts may come forward, but who cares?".

MR CORBELL: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister as Minister for Health. Chief Minister, last week you said in the debate on Mr Berry's motion to set up a select committee to investigate a private hospital that you had been aware of the motion since "earlier this week". That was last week. You then went on to reveal that "an agreement has been signed". A report in the Canberra Times the following day confirmed that a contract had been signed on the same day that you made these statements. Why did you agree to the hasty signing of a contract which would pre-empt this Assembly's consideration of your proposed private hospital?

Mr Whitecross: A good question.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, it is a good question. I am very pleased to answer it. As I said in that debate, Mr Berry put out his first press release on this last July. The tenders went out in August last year. There was any amount of time for people to bring a motion before this Assembly if they wanted to stop the process, Mr Speaker; no problems whatsoever. But there were no comments in the Assembly. There were no problems at all, it appeared, in the Assembly. In January I announced the successful tenderer, HCOA. At that stage, of course, there were exchanges of letters and a commitment between the two parties was entered into to work up the project. Still there were no comments. There still was the capacity for Mr Berry or anybody else in this place to bring the project forward.

Mr Speaker, we briefed Mr Berry, at his request, I think, the week before last, and at that stage told him categorically that the signing of the agreement - I expect there will be more agreements, actually - and the right to lease the land and to go ahead was imminent. It was, Mr Speaker. The process continued. It was not speeded up in any way. Exactly what Mr Berry was told happened. The contract was signed imminently, as was said at the time. I did not sign it, Mr Speaker, as I would not; that was signed by the chief executive officer of the department.

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