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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3705 ..

MRS CARNELL (continuing):

The only other area in which I could work out where Ms Tucker might have had a problem was the comment on Michelle's professional nursing service, which is a commercial service. Michelle's has both nurses and non-nurse carers working for them; there is no doubt about that. I am advised that Michelle's do have a training program in place - in fact, it has been in place for, I think, more than eight months - and that training program has been approved by the department. What more can I say? I think it is very unfortunate to use a place like this to say a commercial service somehow has untrained staff, when they obviously have a training program in place, and to somehow run down a commercial operation that, certainly from my advice, under most circumstances, has been operating very well.

As I said earlier, Mr Speaker, it is unfortunate to spend so much of the Assembly's time and, of course, the taxpayers' money debating an issue such as this. Ms Tucker herself indicated that she had absolutely no substance at all to back up this approach. Certainly, Ms Tucker should have had a no-confidence motion saying, "I have no confidence in the Minister for Health because I do not agree with her". I am sorry, Mr Speaker; that is not the basis for a no-confidence motion. That is all there is to it. That is what Ms Tucker has said to this Assembly today. I think I have addressed each one of those points, in full certainly; but I believe that is essential. A no-confidence motion is the most serious motion that any Minister can be faced with in any parliament. I take that very seriously. Mr Speaker, there is no substance; she has admitted there is no substance. This is simply a waste of taxpayers' money.

MR BERRY (11.28): Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell, in quoting from one of her reports, I think, used the words, "There are a number of things we can change". Mr Speaker, there is one thing that we can change in the interests of health management in the Territory, and that is this Minister. The Minister is not up to the job. She has too much to do, according to some of our Independent colleagues. I would say she is just incompetent. Mr Speaker, she has treated the process of this Assembly in dealing with a motion of no confidence with mockery and contempt. For that alone she deserves a punishment. It is a very serious issue to bring before this Assembly a motion of no confidence in a Minister and it has to be treated seriously by the one who is challenged as well as by those who are challenging.

Mr Speaker, the motion moved by the Greens speaks for itself, but I have circulated an amendment in my name which I will move forthwith, and I will deal with it in the context of my speech on the issue. I move:

After paragraph (3) add the following paragraph: "(4) mismanagement of the Health budget.".

I heard Mrs Carnell responding to one of the points made in Ms Tucker's motion where it reads:

failure to give sufficient priority to people most disadvantaged in the community.

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