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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2660 ..
MR SMYTH
(continuing):ministers are entitled to and were allowed to answer questions and did not hide behind this false construct, then clearly Mr Wood's case is flawed.
Mr Corbell had some interesting notions, and Mrs Cross put some of them to bed. I actually asked for the April figures, not the March figures. Mr Corbell kept talking about the Liberals' report and the majority report. Well, there is no minority report. It was the Assembly's report. So to create this notion that it is a report of the Liberals and the opposition is false.
Mr Corbell says there are no more documents. We actually asked for all the documents concerning the creation of the email, the distribution of the email, the response to that distribution, and any disciplinary action that was taken about it. We did not get any information on a disciplinary action. Of the 29 or so individuals who received the original document, apparently not one of them responded. No-one in the health department, until it became a public issue, was interested in that document. It is amazing-Mr Speaker, I am sure you are amazed-that 29 people chose not to respond. One very wise person got in at about 9 or 10 on the Monday morning when it was aired on 2CN and deleted it. There is a wise man. The rest of them, I can only assume, either read it or left it on their machines.
Mr Corbell seemed to say that because we did not ask and demand the numbers relating to the hospital waiting list, therefore somehow the committee was deficient. I want to talk about the process that we took. It took several days, and Mr Hargreaves will confirm this, because Mrs Cross had concerns about what we were asking for in relation to the documents. I think we saw Mr Corbell on the Thursday and the letter from the committee to Mr Corbell asking for the documents went the following Tuesday. We did not have that opportunity with the figures because he dropped them the next morning.
I think the dangerous thing is that Mr Corbell said-and I accept his apology:
The government will make decisions on when it announces and releases things, as I have indicated.
Again, there was no concession given to the right of the committee to ask for information, to seek information on behalf of others. So I think those things need to be put into context. I will leave it at that. Mr Speaker, it appears that my amendment will be voted on seriatim, and that is acceptable to me.
MR WOOD
(Minister for Disability, Housing and Community Services, Minister for Urban Services, Minister for the Arts and Heritage and Minister for Police and Emergency Services): Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak again.Leave granted.
MR WOOD: Mr Speaker, members who have been here a little while know that I do not like the procedure of members getting up and seeking endless extensions. I think your rulings have stopped that somewhat. However, members are still seeking leave to speak again and again. As I say, I do not normally do that.
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