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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 14 Hansard (11 December) . . Page.. 4961 ..

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (4.21): If the vitriol directed at me personally had been taken out of the Government's response, it would have been a much thinner response and would have taken the Chief Minister a lot shorter time to deal with. As the vitriol has been included, one has to respond to that much of it which is worth responding to. The first thing I want to deal with in relation to this matter is the Government's and in particular the Chief Minister's approach to consultation. Earlier on in this place we heard the Chief Minister boasting about her Government's commitment to consultation and how all of her "Meet the Minister" programs, funded by the community in the lead-up to the election of course, are a signal of that commitment. She also made a point of raising with me a letter which she had sent to me in relation to the establishment of the Review of the Governance of the ACT, and she called that consultation. The real issue is: When is consultation real consultation? Mrs Carnell thinks, it appears, that consultation is a discussion which happens after the matter has been decided. I do not. Consultation is about talking with people as you form the idea, as you lead to the decision. That is proper consultation. It happens at the contemplative stage.

This is where the Government went wrong from the outset and cheated businesses in the ACT. This is a government that sings loudly about its connections with the business sector. They are slightly frayed as a result of their behaviour in relation to this hospital - more than slightly frayed. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell says, "We consulted and anyway the John James Hospital had the right to tender for the hospital if they wanted to". What a joke! This was a multimillion dollar establishment. Mrs Carnell says that it was fair because John James could have dug into its reserves and tendered for it and set the hospital up themselves. That just shows a complete misunderstanding or lack of understanding about business issues here in the ACT. The Chief Minister does not understand business issues in the ACT. She intends to promote herself in the lead-up to the next election as a person who does. I think this particular incident will demonstrate clearly to the business sector that this Chief Minister does not care much about other businesses in the ACT. She has clearly favoured one from outside of the ACT for this hospital, against the interests of existing businesses in the ACT. John James Hospital were not consulted about the - - -

Mrs Carnell: They could have tendered.

MR BERRY: There she goes again. She says, "They could have tendered". That is consultation! This lack of understanding of the consultative process is a clear demonstration of the inadequacies of the Chief Minister to deal with these sorts of issues. The same happened in relation to Calvary Hospital. Calvary Hospital invested something like $6m in a medical centre at Calvary Hospital to cater for its future needs in the private sector. Would Calvary have invested that sort of money had they known that the Government was going to make this decision about the new private hospital? I suppose the Little Company of Mary were living in the mistaken view that they might be consulted if the Government was about to make some big decision about hospitals in the ACT. I am afraid that they were shocked by the reality that the Government did

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