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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (28 August) . . Page.. 2698 ..

MS REILLY: My request for additional information is this: Yesterday you announced that there had been a large amount of consultation with people about the type of housing they wanted in the ACT. When you detail the type and extent of consultation which you have conducted - - -

Mrs Carnell: That is a second question.

Ms McRae: Mrs Carnell, you are not the Speaker.

MS REILLY: Can I finish the question? Then Mr Speaker will have an opportunity. Would you detail the extent and type of consultation that you have conducted with those on the waiting list for public housing?

MR STEFANIAK: When people want a certain type of public housing, they list what they want. When people are in public housing that is unsuitable to their needs and they apply for a transfer, they go onto a waiting list for the type of housing they want. Also, on regular occasions, we send out surveys in relation to various aspects of public housing. In terms of getting to the individual tenants who might want to live in a certain type of public housing, those would be the mechanisms that would be followed.

MR KAINE: I have a question to the Chief Minister in her capacity as Minister for Health and Community Care. Chief Minister, I am sure you will be aware of claims made by Mr Berry today about the complete withdrawal of services at the birthing centre at the Canberra Hospital - that is, that the birthing centre has been closed down. If this is the case, it is news to me. Can you confirm whether what Mr Berry has said is true or untrue?

MRS CARNELL: Thank you very much, Mr Kaine, for the question. I am really going to enjoy answering this one, Mr Kaine. Mr Speaker, first of all, let us get to the facts and let us deal with those facts. Facts are something that Mr Berry has an awful lot of trouble with. Mr Berry today claimed that the birthing centre at Canberra Hospital had been closed, Mr Speaker. He based this claim on the activity report of the hospital for June that did not show any figures for the centre. Did he ring my office? No. Did he ring Canberra Hospital to ask why? No. Did he ring the Department of Health and ask why? No.

Did he read the top of the page that he got the figures from? No. If he had, he would have read that they were "preliminary figures only", Mr Speaker. Did he then read the first page of the table, Mr Speaker? Had he got to table 1 in his in-depth look at these figures, he would have seen non-inpatient occasions of service down at the bottom, which says "incomplete figures", Mr Speaker. Of course, as an ex-Minister for Health, he would realise that services at our birthing centre are non-inpatient services, Mr Speaker.

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