Page 1939 - Week 07 - Thursday, 23 August 2007
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MS GALLAGHER: I do not think nurses are saying I am not talking to them. I think you have got it—
Mrs Burke: Oh, right!
MR SPEAKER: Order! Cease interjecting, Mrs Burke. It is better not to respond.
MS GALLAGHER: Here we have a situation where we have more nurses than ever before, the lowest separation rate we have ever seen—
Mrs Burke: And you are not talking to them.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Burke!
MS GALLAGHER: and an industrial dispute that never happened. And I am the one that is not talking to the nurses! The record of the opposition on talking to nurses is of a strike and an unsettled industrial dispute. Here we have, for the first time since self-government, a situation where the nurses and the government have spoken, to the point where there is no industrial dispute.
We have more nurses than ever before. We have 1,200 full-time equivalent nurses now, 100 more than we had this time last year, working in the hospital.
Mrs Burke: But they say you are not talking to them.
MR SPEAKER: Mrs Burke!
Mrs Burke: I am only saying what they are saying to me.
MR SPEAKER: Ask your question and sit quietly and listen.
Mrs Burke: She is not answering it.
MS GALLAGHER: Mrs Burke, I do not deny that you have—
Members interjecting—
MR SPEAKER: Order! Chief Minister, cease interjecting. The Minister for Health will direct her comments through the chair. Mrs Burke, no more interjections.
MS GALLAGHER: She cannot help herself. She is the woman that never interjects but spends the whole time interjecting.
Mrs Burke: I have never said that.
MS GALLAGHER: Having dealt with Mrs Burke in a range of portfolios, I know what happens. I do not doubt that you speak to nurses, Mrs Burke, but you cannot say that I am not speaking to nurses.
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