Page 3476 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 18 September 1991
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I recall that at the previous meeting of Ministers in May of this year, which I attended and Mr Collaery, I think, attended, respectively as the health and welfare Ministers at the time, a number of very interesting and important issues from the Territory's point of view were raised. One of those is particularly apposite to the debate we have had today on bed numbers. In answer to a question from Ms Maher in the Assembly, on 28 May I tabled documents which had been produced at the previous Health Ministers conferences, dealing with the decline in projected use of beds on a per head basis in the population, and those indicators, I think, were somewhat prophetic, given Mr Berry's Government's announcement in the budget yesterday. The point I am making is that, if you want to know where you read it first, look to the Hansard of 28 May.
It is valuable to have these reports, as I indicated, and I thank the Minister for having indicated what occurred at those meetings. I would have been even more interested to know what had happened at that meeting with respect to the debate about the $3.50 contribution by people attending doctors' surgeries towards the costs of providing a service to those patients. We have not heard what that debate was. Perhaps it will be forthcoming in the next ministerial statement.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
CROWN SUITS (AMENDMENT) BILL 1991
Debate resumed from 12 September 1991, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR COLLAERY (3.47): Unlike my last comment, I have very little to say. This is a useful tidying up Bill.
Mr Connolly: Oh!
MR COLLAERY: Mr Connolly is in a highly ironic mood at the moment. I do not want to joust with him. I do not think we want another Whalan-Collaery type of tradition starting in this Assembly. I will resist the temptation to see Mr Connolly in the shoes of his predecessor. I actually enjoyed the repartee with Mr Whalan, but with Mr Connolly I feel it is an unequal contest.
Mr Connolly: Go easy on me, Bernard.
Mrs Grassby: Oh!
MR COLLAERY: It is unbecoming, because, of course, we are both lawyers and, really, we should have our argument somewhere else. Lawyers, of course, as Mrs Grassby will never appreciate, are really the stuff of the earth. They really are.
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