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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (28 March) . . Page.. 793 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

in that effort. That is what she said. Mr Speaker, she might, one day, get the support of this Assembly for that effort; but she will get that support when she does not engage in recklessly misleading the Assembly about the savings she is going to get from the VMO contracts. She will get that support when she does not put in her budget a figure showing how much money she is going to spend on health, knowing that that budget is not achievable, and then turn around to this Assembly later on and say, "Can I have an extra $14m because I am running a bit short?". Mrs Carnell will get the support of this Assembly and the Canberra community to do a better job on Health when she treats this Assembly with the respect that it deserves, when she treats the community with the respect that they deserve, when she does not engage in reckless misleading, when she does not engage in deceptive budgeting, and when she comes clean about the problems in Health.

Mrs Carnell made the rod for her own back with her glib claims that the health system was easily fixed, that you could cut $30m from it, increase the number of beds and reduce the waiting list. She is the one who made all those claims. If she comes back to this Assembly and says, "It is not that easy. It is very hard to reduce the waiting list. It is very hard to get a lower budget result", we might get somewhere. When we see her acting in good faith in relation to her own employees in the Department of Health and elsewhere in the bureaucracy, we might be willing to believe that she deserves our support. Until she can treat this Assembly and the Canberra community with some honesty, respect and humility in relation to her past mistakes, I do not think we can expect her to get the support of this Assembly that she is asking for.

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Whitecross's), as amended, be agreed to.

The Assembly voted -

AYES, 10	 NOES, 7

Mr Berry	Mrs Carnell
Ms Follett	Mr Cornwell
Ms Horodny	Mr De Domenico
Ms McRae	Mr Hird
Mr Moore	Mr Humphries
Mr Osborne	Mr Kaine
Ms Reilly	Mr Stefaniak
Ms Tucker
Mr Whitecross
Mr Wood

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