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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 241 ..

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: You foreshadow that. We will need to deal with Ms Tucker's amendment first.

MR HUMPHRIES: All right. I do not think my amendment is inconsistent with Ms Tucker's. I assume I can move mine even if Ms Tucker's amendment gets up. Anyway, I will come to that later. Mr Deputy Speaker, I will foreshadow that amendment and simply say that I believe it is important that we start to put a clear set of expectations on the Minister for Health, on the part of the Assembly, to indicate that issues like waiting times, the financing of the hospital, the relationship with the staff and so on need to be addressed, and addressed in an accountable and measurable way, where that is possible, but not to simply go into the process of saying, "Well, your budget's blown out; ipso facto, you stand condemned". That contributes nothing to the seeking out of solutions.

Mr Deputy Speaker, the motion itself, I think, is misguided. The motion says that the Minister should be condemned for interfering in the management of the Canberra Hospital. The fact of the matter is that we have to engineer a situation where there is an active involvement by the government of the Territory in the management of issues in the hospital and, indeed, every other area of the health system, because the Minister for Health, as this motion demonstrates today, is accountable to this Assembly for what happens in that system. I know there are lots of things you can be criticised for doing. For interfering in a way which is unproductive or which is counterproductive or which exacerbates a tender situation or whatever, yes, by all means, the Minister might be condemned for that. But condemning for interference per se is a very unsound principle because the fact remains that it is the duty of Ministers to intervene, to be involved, to make sure that issues and problems which arise are addressed. Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek an extension of time. (Extension of time granted)

I have to note, Mr Deputy Speaker, that there is nobody on the Labor Party benches at the moment. You are sitting in the Speaker's chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. Someone is coming back into the chamber now. It does not say much for this sort of debate when this is the level of interest by the Opposition. Mr Deputy Speaker, the approach from the Opposition has been short term. It has been to say, very arrogantly, "Look, we do not care what we said in the past. We do not care that our hands are as black as soot from problems of this kind in the past. You have a problem, so we will just point the finger at you".

Mr Stefaniak: Call Wayne "Sooty".

MR HUMPHRIES: "Sooty", yes. "Sooty" is a good epithet, but, of course, I would not be personal.

I particularly ask members to address paragraph (5) of this motion. There are not many members listening to the debate at the moment, I have to say, but I strongly urge members who might be outside listening on the intercom to consider the unwisdom of condemning a Minister for intervening in the hospital process. The Minister must intervene in the hospital process. It is the Minister's job to intervene in the hospital process. He cannot be accountable to this place and not intervene to some degree. Mr Moore has made it clear that the parting of Mr Johnston from the hospital system was an amicable one.

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