Page 3656 - Week 12 - Thursday, 13 October 1994
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DESIGN AND SITING APPROVALS
MR WOOD: Madam Speaker, yesterday Mr De Domenico asked me a question about garages made, I think, by the firm W.R. Engineering.
Mr De Domenico: Carports too.
MR WOOD: Carports. I said that I would get back to him with the details of that. I did indicate yesterday that I thought it was due to technical difficulties and not meeting requirements. In fact, I am told that it was just simple delay. I think there was one question that was asked, but it is inexcusable. I am sorry that W.R. Engineering has suffered that delay. I might point out that the Department of the Environment, Land and Planning has been undertaking a very extensive review to see how well it provides its services, and I should hope that that sort of thing does not happen again.
MINISTER FOR HEALTH
Motion of Censure
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.39), by leave: Madam Speaker, I move:
That this Assembly censures the Minister for Health for misrepresenting to it the number of available public hospital beds in the ACT.
I plan to be quite brief in my approach, because I plan to cover three specific issues. Quite seriously, we could go on for hours about the number of statements that this Minister has made that have not presented the total picture. Today I would like to cover three issues. The three issues are: The 24 beds that the Minister promised in his answer on 16 June, which is added to in those tabled documents this week; the number of paediatric beds, which is also referred to in the documents that the Minister tabled this week; and the total number of beds. I actually plan to use the papers that the Minister tabled as well as his answers on Tuesday.
The first question that we asked on Tuesday quoted the Minister as saying on 16 June that 24 beds were coming on stream immediately. In fact, we quoted a number of other comments that the Minister had made to suggest that the 24 beds - 24 of the 55 that were closed over Christmas - were going to be opened by 1 July. Did we at any time see the Minister come back and tell this house that he had said that they were going to come on stream immediately but, unfortunately, they have not come on stream immediately? No, we did not, Madam Speaker. We did not hear him come back and correct the statement that he made in June, when he knew perfectly well that it had not happened; until this week, when, in answer to questions, again from the Opposition, he had to admit that the 24 beds had not actually opened. Now he states that 14 of the 24 beds have opened. That is on page 2 of the document headed "Bed Numbers Reconciliation". At the top of that page, it says:
To date, 14 of the 24 beds have opened ...
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