Page 4107 - Week 14 - Thursday, 25 October 1990
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benefit. I thought that was one of the lowest performances I have seen in the house. To the great credit of the Government, no-one responded to the use of that troubled youth's name and the situation of his family. That issue is being resolved on an amicable basis.
Mrs Grassby: It was reported in the Canberra Times, for God's sake.
MR COLLAERY: Through you, Mr Speaker: if Mrs Grassby wants to adopt the standards of all journalism in this Territory she is entitled to, but this Government will not.
Mr Moore: Are you attacking the hardworking journalists of this Territory?
Mrs Grassby: Are you attacking the Canberra Times again? The Government is always attacking the Canberra Times.
MR COLLAERY: Through you, Mr Speaker: I would never attack the hardworking journalists of the Canberra Times. I might have something to say to the editors and chiefs of staff, though; but that is not for this debate.
Ms Follett: Why not? It is about mental health.
MR COLLAERY: Ms Follett interjects and says that I should, because this debate is about mental health. I will let her address those issues directly to those persons. I am not here to malign the mental health of our editors and chiefs of staff.
Mr Berry: You should seek some counselling, I think.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Berry, of course, has a strong interest in the counselling services in the mental health area. Too bad he did not have a strong enough interest when he tried to influence his left faction in the budget last year, because he gave some paltry sum for 24-hour mental health relief that would not have bought more than a few upholstered couches. The fact is that we were left to carry that can as well, out of the tizzy little cosmetic budget that Ms Follett brought down. That tizzy little budget left out a heap of things, as we know, in a whole range of areas. The voices are out on this one because they are sensitive. They really rise every time I get to my feet these days. It is tremendous to see them, and certainly it is an apt subject on which to have them perform.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I support wholeheartedly the measures recently announced by my colleague Mr Humphries. Yesterday I had the experience of speaking to a skilled, renowned and well known mental health crisis interventionist worker from New South Wales during one of the Assembly adjournments. That person, who has been down here for an important meeting in our region, discussed with me in detail the initiatives that Mr Humphries is taking and those of my department, with its overlapping care responsibilities in
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