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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 9 Hansard (4 September) . . Page.. 2914 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

I think I have spoken about the implementation or what we have done, the fact that Mr Berry's comments on EBAs were not right, and what the real circumstances were with regard to the 1994 position. The thing I have not raised, Mr Speaker, is that Mr Berry was Health Minister for four years and he did nothing.

Mr Berry: Yes, I did.

MRS CARNELL: He did absolutely nothing, Mr Speaker.

Mr Wood: He took the doctors on.

Mr Berry: Don't you remember? I took the doctors on.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Silence!

MRS CARNELL: What he did do, Mr Speaker, is blow out four health budgets and double waiting lists.

Mr Berry: Relevance, Mr Speaker.

MR SPEAKER: Relevance. Yes, I uphold that. Did you want to ask a supplementary question, Mr Berry?

MR BERRY: I do indeed, Mr Speaker. Chief Minister, are you trying to tell us now that the internal audit document was secreted away in Terry Connolly's bottom drawer? Are you also trying to tell us that the Auditor-General had to go over to the Supreme Court and rip it out of his bottom drawer? Whom are you trying to kid here? Of course, it was not secret. It was well known throughout management.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I can guarantee that this Government was not given a copy of an internal document. Why, Mr Speaker? Because there were no implementation plans. It simply had not gone anywhere. Nothing had been done since June the year before. It simply was on some shelf or in some bottom drawer gathering dust. Mr Speaker, if those opposite had put it into place, or put in an implementation plan, obviously we would have known about it. But because it was on some shelf gathering dust because those opposite had done nothing, or in a bottom drawer, wherever they had secreted it away, this Government did not know about it until the Auditor-General - - -

Mr Corbell: You are the Minister.

MRS CARNELL: It was not done under us. We are not responsible - - -

Mr Berry: This is your best effort yet.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Do not respond to interjections, Chief Minister. I cannot deal with people interjecting if you respond to them.

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