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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3694 ..

Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: It is a serious motion. The Government will have the opportunity to respond formally to the claims that are being made. Informal interjections when other people are trying to listen should not be tolerated.

MR SPEAKER: Order! I uphold Mr Berry's point of order.

MS TUCKER: Mr Speaker, as I was saying, a professional commercial nursing service was mentioned many times. This statement clearly implies that the available professional commercial nursing service would supply nurses at a lower rate than that currently paid to residential carers. I was interested in that statement because I had already received complaints about the quality of personnel that were being sent from this professional commercial nursing agency. I was interested to hear that these people were nurses. But it appears that they are not. I have spoken many times to people and the most recent time I have spoken to three different people, and I invite the Chief Minister to tell me that this is not true. I would be delighted to hear that we are actually sending people who are trained to Disability Services houses and that we can do it - - -

Mr Berry: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: The Chief Minister consistently offends against standing order 202(e). She should be warned.

MR SPEAKER: I uphold the point of order.

MS TUCKER: Thank you. I invite Mrs Carnell to clarify for me that, in fact, it is not the case that totally untrained people are sent to disability group homes; that sometimes people who are just straight out of school are going to group homes; that there have been occasions when people without a drivers licence have gone to group homes and have had to go back; that members of her staff have refused to use that agency on occasions because they have been so unsatisfied; that there has been no training required; that it is just starting now; and that there is being developed right now by that agency a training package for people so that the service is better. Of course, again it is just not the whole story we hear. It is quite possible and appropriate that this agency does give employment to people other than nurses, but the very clear implication from Mrs Carnell's statements was that we are getting nurses and that they are much cheaper than the people employed in the houses at the moment. It is not good enough; it does not matter how good you are with words, whether you make sure your statements are just ambiguous enough to never be an absolute mislead; the point is that the impressions you have created to serve your political end at the moment have been misleading. (Extension of time granted) It is just another example of the lack of appropriate respect for the important issues we are attempting to discuss.

In relation to accountability, we should also look at the dog's breakfast of contradictory mental health figures that have been promoted by this Minister. Let us take 1995-96 first, because that is the beginning of the story. The budget speech for 1995-96 said that mental health expenditure would increase by 7 per cent over that year. Page 9 of Your Money at Work expanded on this by saying that mental health expenditure was increasing by $400,000. During the estimates process we found out that

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