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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 167 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Furthermore, financial information about each of these categories should be itemised according to the actual year to date revenue and expenditure, the original budget estimate for where revenue and expenditure would be at this date, supplementation occurring in each of the various categories, and, of course, other relevant information.

Guess who the source of that great shopping list was. Kate Carnell, Hansard, December 1992. I could ask for no less for members today.

We received quarterly reports in the past. I am insisting that that system continue. If Mrs Carnell is not up to the provision of those quarterly reports, then she will have to suffer the consequences from this Assembly. What is the good of preliminary figures which are issued month after month and which you cannot question? Mrs Carnell will not be questioned on any issue; she makes sure that she never gives any figures that she can be questioned on because they are never final. What we want is final monthly reports and final three-monthly reports, to give a complete picture about the real situation in Health. We want to show the community how badly you are going out there. We want to avoid the need to ask questions and cop the stream of abuse and vitriol either by way of press release or from your own mouth in this place.

Mr Speaker, it would be far better for the standing of this Assembly if Mrs Carnell were to put the reports together in a quarterly and monthly format to ensure that full information is coming to this Assembly. I expect another stream of abuse. Mrs Carnell offered to brief me in relation to these matters. I wrote to her yesterday and said, "I think it would be better if you gave me the information". That is what I am insisting on.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Minister for Health and Community Care) (6.11): Mr Speaker, it is actually a bit hard even to respond to that because it is very hard to believe that anybody in this place cannot add three figures together to achieve a quarterly report. As members of this house would know, yes, we did force the issue to require Mr Berry to report regularly.

Mr Berry: No, you did not.

MRS CARNELL: Yes, we did. But Mr Berry actually did not report at all for a very long time, Mr Speaker.

Mr Berry: No, you did not. Will you apologise for that?

MRS CARNELL: I have all the information, Wayne; it does not help. But the reality is that Mr Berry did not actually produce monthly reports. He produced only quarterly reports, which of course were averages. Mr Speaker, they were averages, so that we did not actually ever know exactly where we were up to. For all of that, quarterly reports were a great improvement on nothing, which is what we had for a very long time.

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