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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 3319 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

to remove any information from the bulletin. This information was incorrect, and I would like to make the following correction."Those are Mr Corbell's words.

The information reported in the new publication, ACT public hospitals: access to elective surgery, will not report all information previously reported in the hospital information bulletins. Either he is delusional-blithely saying, "But there's more information,"when his own letter on 17 June this year, following the estimates, said it has less information-or he needs to come back and tell people what the truth is here.

Point 5 "calls on the government to table the waiting list figures for the previous month ... on the next Assembly sitting day". It is a reasonable part of the amendments, perhaps the only reasonable part. However, we do have the problem of what happens during a winter recess, which might go for eight or nine weeks. From the December closure of the Assembly through to late February/early March, this data might not be available for almost three months. That is unacceptable as well.

The other point Mr Corbell made is that the government already releases the information when it is available. His record does not back that up. It did not happen during the estimates, when he had it; he refused to give it to the Estimates Committee and, through them, the community. As a consequence of that, there is a committee of contempt looking into that particular statement.

If you talk to the library-we talk to the library; we go up seeking this information-they say to come back on about the 21st, which is when they expect it. They have told my office on a number of occasions that it is in the minister's office and they are waiting for it. They have actually rung the minister's office to find out where the information is. So, I am sorry, Mr Corbell. You say the government releases it when it is available. But it is actually as you said in the Estimates Committee: you will release it when you are good and ready; the government does not have to do it when the people call for it; the government will do what it wants. That is incorrect as well.

I thank Ms Tucker for her amendments. I find amendment 2 to point 2, insert "Information Bulletins-Patient Activity Data", acceptable. I would prefer to leave the 21st of each month. It is three weeks after the closure of the previous months. It is three weeks in which the data can be collated-it has already been gathered-and presented. I think it gives people some certainty. If they want, they can change the 21st to the 25th or the 28th, but I do not think we can let this minister go. This minister has already told us things tonight that are not borne out by the facts.

He says he releases the figures when they are available. I can give you two occasions when that did not happen. He says that they are released every month, but no figures were released in July. If we let him off the hook on this occasion, we will be back here shortly tying him down a little bit more. The minister seems to like the thought that if you say something often enough people will believe it. It is not true in this case.

I would ask Ms Tucker to reconsider keeping the 21st. It is achievable. It was achieved consistently by this government through most of last year. If she wants to make it the 25th or 28th, that would also be acceptable, but we do need to tie this minister down to a set date. Otherwise we run the risk of having to come back to do this again.

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