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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 236 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

What I would like to see you do is maintain the bar at that height for your own Ministers. If you were to do it, you would be voting with us on this question. The motion, of course, also deals with the alarming increase in elective surgery waiting lists. They grow as long as Pinocchio's nose.

Ms Carnell: They are as long as yours were. We have got up to your level.

MR BERRY: They are longer. After all of the money that you have invested in hospital waiting lists to try to save your own skin, they are still high. Again, what I would like you to do is use the same standards as you applied before in relation to these matters to deal with your own Ministers. Just be consistent with your own. That is all I would like to see you do.

The motion refers to "the Minister for Health and Community Care's inability to deal positively with staff of The Canberra Hospital". Michael Moore is a chameleon. This is the left of centre Independent that came into this parliament. Some of you would not have been around and have listened to the shrieks of dismay when other Residents Rally members joined with the Liberals to form the Alliance Government. What sort of an approach would you have expected from that member if he had been consistent? You certainly would not have expected him in a Liberal government. By his own standards, he would not have joined them.

Mr Moore: By his own standards, he went to the electorate first. That is the difference.

MR BERRY: Come on; pull the other leg. It yodels.

Mr Moore: I know that you do not have the intellectual capacity to understand these things.

MR BERRY: Let us get personal. Mr Moore, nobody would ever claim to have the intellectual capacity that you have. We would not want that sort of capacity - if we are getting personal, that is. Mr Speaker, this left of centre Independent then latched himself on to the Liberal ideology in relation to industrial relations and tried to do a bit of union busting. It did not work.

Mr Speaker, he also sacked the chief executive of the Canberra Hospital - unloaded him. Then there is his interference in the day-to-day running of the hospital system. I heard him also - and I must say that I was fairly disturbed at this - making light of certain procedures in the hospital. Breast reductions was one that he used.

Ms Carnell: Elective ones, non-clinically required.

MR BERRY: Okay, elective breast reductions. Mr Speaker, could I have just a short extension? This will not take long.

Mr Moore: You are beyond it. You have had your extension.

MR BERRY: You got 15 minutes, Michael.

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