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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2014 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the facts of the matter are that those areas which have been saved in the ACT have been saved because of actions which have been initiated by Labor. Health centres were under immediate threat from this Chief Minister. Health care in the future, in my view, is at risk as well, because Mrs Carnell has this infatuation with driving public health care into the private sector and she does not care about the outturn after she has finished with it. This is short-term gain stuff. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell has misled the community in relation to her three-year budget. She misled the community with her election promises before the last election. People are entitled to feel hurt by the approach that has been taken by this Health Minister. Mr Speaker, this budget is not worth supporting.

MR MOORE (5.56): It is interesting, is it not, Mr Speaker, that, three years later, Mr Berry still has so much angst left over losing his ministry that he keeps using the word "misleading"?

Mr Berry: No; I lost the ministry because I pinged you on tobacco use.

MR SPEAKER: Sit down, Mr Berry.

MR MOORE: You lost your ministry, Mr Berry, because you genuinely misled - - -

Mr Berry: No; because I pinged you on joining with the tobacco companies, Michael; that is why.

MR MOORE: You genuinely misled this Assembly. That is why you lost it. It had nothing to do with anything else. Mr Berry, if you looked at yourself and looked at the way you acted and then moved on, the rest of us would move on as well. But, instead, you wallow in hate and you wallow in trying to get even. While you continue with that approach you will never have a chance of looking forward. You will never have a chance of looking forward until you accept that that was the action and that it is time to move.

Mr Berry: What a self-righteous bunch of - - -

MR MOORE: You talk about our being self-righteous, when we have put up with this total rubbish from you for so long, with hardly a comment, Wayne Berry. The reality is that when you were in government you had exactly the same support on your budgets as this Government has received. They also used to say the same sorts of things to the crossbenchers: "It is your budget. You are as much to blame as the Government, because it is their budget". That is the approach we take. You keep convincing yourself of that, if you want to; but the reality is that the community and anybody who watches this Assembly with any depth at all realise just how much you are burning up inside with that.

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