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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Thursday, 24 June 2004) . . Page.. 2717 ..

We have focused this evening on three particular issues. The first is mental health nursing scholarships. Minister Corbell has answered that by saying that the advice that he received in estimates was not correct, that mental health scholarships were provided for in the 2002-03 budget. However, there are still a lot more questions to be asked and answers to be given on the whole mental health scholarships issue. I do not think that this debate has cleared it up any more.

Mr Wood: What were the questions?

MS DUNDAS: When was the decision made to start funding mental health nursing scholarships? Who made the decision? When was the information communicated to the ministers, be that Minister Stanhope or Minister Corbell? I know that this is something that goes back a long time, so I am raising it almost as a separate issue. I think that more things need to be investigated. As to how it reflects on Minister Corbell specifically, he did get some information wrong and he has now sought to correct that. As to the discussion on mental health expenditure, he has corrected the figure on one occasion, but that figure was incorrectly used on a number of occasions. That needs to be clear. The figure of $67 for the level of mental health funding was correct for 2000. It has just been used incorrectly a number of times in this place and publicly.

When advised of that through a ministerial brief, the minister did correct the record, but he referred to only one occasion which I think was a bit disappointing. There were a number of occasions where this statement was used incorrectly. By particularly referring to only one point, the record for the rest of those situations still remains unclear. Although I think we can all agree at this point that, when the Labor government took office, the correct figure for mental health funding was $82.50.

Then we have the discussion about the forensic health facility. Minister Corbell believed that he was quoting Hansard when he quoted from a document that attributed some words to the Leader of the Opposition. From my reading of that document, it appears to be notes taken by a journalist who was talking to the Leader of the Opposition about the Liberal Party’s policy for mental health funding into the future. Tonight Mr Corbell sought to correct the record on that particular issue. I think it is safe to say that there have been a number of times when the wrong information has been put in front of this Assembly. There is a pattern of behaviour. There are concerns about not only the information that has been presented to this Assembly but also how errors are dealt with when they are noticed in the presentation.

When concerns were raised about the implementation of this Assembly’s motion in relation to the Nettlefold Street trees, it took a motion of no confidence, amended to a motion of censure, for the minister to come to this Assembly and explain what was happening. When concerns were raised about information provided in the Estimates Committee, it took the threat of a referral to the privileges committee for the minister to apologise and indicate that he had done something wrong. Despite the fact that Mr Smyth has indicated on at least two occasions this year that he believed Mr Corbell had made incorrect statements in this place, it has taken a motion of no confidence to get Minister Corbell to correct the record. It is incredibly disappointing that that continues to occur. It would have been a lot easier if the minister, on hearing the comments of Mr Smyth on 14 May or early in March, had come down and said, “Yes, I was wrong” or

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