Page 5180 - Week 17 - Thursday, 13 December 1990
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MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (12.23): Mr Speaker, I rise briefly to endorse the comments of my colleague Mr Humphries and to welcome them. I also rise, personally, to very much welcome the establishment of a board of health with these objectives and priorities. This is a prospect that Canberra looks forward to under self-government. It is a notable development in the provision of health services and it in no way, as Mr Berry suggests, derogates from the emphasis this Government puts upon community related health care and all of the ancillary issues that go with that.
There has been comment during the debate this morning - while many of us, Ministers at least, have other things to do - suggesting that the Rally has somehow run away or departed from its policy. Here is a foursquare policy implementation. I am very pleased for Mr Moore, who authored it, if I recollect correctly, in those more pleasant days, one can say. Clearly it is a time also for all of us to acknowledge the enormous amount of work, as my colleague Dr Kinloch was impliedly saying, that is done on an honorary basis by various Canberrans or people in our region to deliver services, in both the government and non-government sectors.
The board is going to do well for the people of the ACT. It will not, I suggest, be long before its delivery of services will be recognised across the spectrum, and it will not have to put up with the prickly views of Mr Berry. He will continue through the rest of the life of this Assembly attacking the board for what it is perceived to be doing or not doing.
It is timely to remind Mr Berry that, for better or worse, he is on the other side of the house and it would be far better for the community if he let the board get on with its job. He may have the luck to get back up into office - although I doubt that that will be the case in the short term - but in the meantime he and his party should let the board get on with its very important work.
MR BERRY (12.26): Mr Speaker, this would have to be one of the most stupid decisions made today, because here is a government - - -
Mr Duby: Here is a government that will not do anything you approve of.
MR BERRY: Of course I am prickly about it, because it is top end of town stuff again. What the Government is about is ensuring that only people who can afford to go on boards will go on them. What about ordinary people who cannot afford to put aside the time to attend on boards? What about small business men and women who might want to attend on boards? What about them, Mr Collaery? You are the person who is supposed to support small business people around this town. The Liberal Party says that it supports them, but the evidence of its actions in recent times would suggest that it does not.
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