Page 1072 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 20 March 1991
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instead, or slot that out and put in "ambulances", or slot that out and put in "schools", the same speech could be given. It is the same speech we have heard hundreds of times already and it has been trotted out yet again for the same purpose.
Mr Duby puts his finger on a very important point, though, Mr Speaker. We have here the beginnings of the next big lie to come from the mouths of people who are prepared to mislead the population of the ACT about what is going on. The next big push is going to be that the Government is not delivering services in the area of children with disabilities; the Government is falling down; the Government has not done its job.
Mr Berry, you owe it to the people of the Territory to tell them and us, for that matter, exactly what it is that we have failed to do. What area of government service is not up to standard? In which area of the various services that we provide, including things like intellectual disability services, mental health services, welfare services, school counsellors and special schools, are we falling down? Tell us, if you can.
I would have to say that that carries with it a special onus as well, an onus to say what you would do differently and I do not know what you would do differently. You have not told us how, in any of the areas in which you criticise this Government, you would do it differently or, for that matter, how you did it differently when you were in government in 1989. We have heard nothing about that. It is the usual same tired, old half-truths, distortions and misrepresentations.
I have to say, Mr Speaker, that I am really almost to the point where I would say that the people of the ACT switch off to Mr Berry. There is no further interest in the drivel that he comes out with.
Mr Jensen: Minnie the Mouth.
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MR HUMPHRIES: I think that we deserve better in a debate in a serious Assembly such as this - a parliament which is establishing itself in the ACT - than the impressionistic overview that we have received from Mr Berry.
Mr Berry: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: Decorum in this place is not served by name-calling such as we just heard in the interjection by Mr Jensen. I distinctly heard him refer to Mrs Grassby as "Minnie the Mouth". That is an outrageous and unparliamentary exercise in name-calling, and it must be withdrawn. Mr Jensen ought to be warned about his behaviour.
Mr Jensen: Mr Speaker, I was responding to Mrs Grassby coming over and interfering with our area over here. As far as I am concerned, I will withdraw it, Mr Speaker.
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