Page 5162 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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some health service that the health board should be providing is not included in the definition and thereby they do not have the power to provide it. It is prescriptive, it is unreasonable, and by leaving those words out it leaves the health board to provide whatever health service is required - not only the ones that Mr Berry thinks are required. So I support Mr Humphries on this view. As far as I am concerned, Mr Berry's proposed addition to the Bill adds nothing; in fact, it detracts from it and he certainly will not get my support for it.
MR MOORE (11.13): Mr Speaker, it is very interesting that the Chief Minister should stand up and talk about misrepresentation with reference to a number of Mr Berry's interjections and then turn around and talk about me taking my bat and ball and going home. What an absolute nonsense! That is absolute misrepresentation on the part of the Chief Minister. What Mr Kaine is probably referring to is the fact that, on a day when I was on warning from you, Mr Speaker, I felt on two occasions that it would be most appropriate for me to leave the chamber rather than take the next stage which could well have put you in a position where you would have no choice but to name me. So the logical and rational thing, Mr Speaker, was for me not to take my bat and ball and go home at all, but for a very short while to take my coat and sit, as you will recall, in the gallery. Whilst some members may consider this Assembly home, I certainly do not, and never have. In fact, it takes me a little longer to go home.
But to bring us back to the notion of a prescriptive amendment being moved by Mr Berry, what absolute nonsense! That is the heart of this misrepresentation. What the Chief Minister was talking about in his speech was a method of marginalising the public health system in the same way that his Minister is attempting to marginalise the public education system, so that only those who cannot afford to go into the private system - - -
Mr Kaine: What does that mean? What does "marginalising" mean?
MR MOORE: The Chief Minister says "What does 'marginalise' mean?". Since he does not understand, I am quite happy to explain it to him - and no doubt, Chief Minister, you will be delighted to give me an extension of time if I require it. But, if you do not, there is another clause, another time. What they are attempting to do is marginalise the public health system in the same way that they are attempting to marginalise the public education system. What they do is make the public systems such that the only people who are left in the public system are those who cannot afford to use the private education and health systems. They are left to use the public ones - and they become inferior services. That is what this Liberal Alliance Government are interested in and that is why they are an anti-social justice Government.
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