Page 677 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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this Government has been the establishment of a new policy direction on substitute care and family support - an initiative which led to the closure of places operated by the Richmond Fellowship under the Outreach Program, for which he allowed George Magdulski to carry the can.
Ms Follett: Blame the Public Service.
MR BERRY: Blame the public servants again. Mr Collaery will not even take responsibility for the cutbacks in his own portfolio area and we heard him whingeing on about the Gowrie hostel a moment ago. Thankfully, the Commonwealth will still retain some control over the building because this Government would have sold it. It is very clear that Mr Collaery has copped the trouncing of his life and he is still stinging. He would be hurt by this because he did not expect the diminutive Mrs Grassby to cuff him around the ears so solidly. I think he will be still stinging until he is thrown out of this place.
The Government calls this an achievement. Perhaps that is a hint of the achievements to follow under the Kaine Government - cuts in services, cuts in jobs, a downgrading of the quality of life for everyone in Canberra, except perhaps for their business mates and perhaps those in the tobacco industry. Even the Greiner Government would be satisfied with the performance of this Government. Every time a member of the Greiner Government turns up in this area a whole bunch of the Liberals opposite wander around them like fawning sycophants, apologising for every action of that cursed Government in New South Wales.
Everything else claimed to be an achievement in Mr Collaery's Community Services portfolio is either a Labor initiative or something which required no effort, no work, no commitment and certainly no dedication. Plans to raise issues at national level and table reports do not involve anything onerous. The people of the ACT might well ask what this Government has been doing in its spare time.
Similarly, in Mr Duby's portfolio areas, there is a list of so-called achievements which are simply a tribute to the efforts of the Follett Labor Government and Mrs Grassby. On the other hand - and this is the laugh of the day - Mr Humphries has achieved a move to bring nurses' remuneration in line with that of their counterparts in other States and Territories. I am sure that the Industrial Relations Commission, the Australian Nursing Federation and all other State and Territory governments will be forthcoming in their praise for this achievement. The result was a matter listed long before Mr Humphries became the Minister. What he did achieve was a winding down of the health system in the ACT while he flexed his muscles with the ACT nurses over their wages and conditions which rightly should be dealt with in the Industrial Relations Commission. Incompetence, that is what it was.
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