Page 4410 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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MR COLLAERY (4.59): I mirror those thanks that Mrs Nolan mentioned. I am going to restrict my comments, Mr Speaker, to one or two areas. Firstly, the health culture, as I saw it, was quite apparent to me. Some of us were quite concerned about a number of issues in the health area. I will concentrate on only one. I am concerned about our methadone program. I am concerned about the capacity of that area to accommodate any innovative programs in the drug and alcohol area. I am concerned about waiting lists in the area. I am concerned about a lack of dynamism. I am very concerned to see that our methadone dispensation arrangements are really not acknowledged as being behind those of other States. They are conservative. They are not appropriate.
I believe that there is a great deal of devotion in that area, but I think it is showing signs of burnout. I commend to the Chief Minister an early look at the methadone program because that might well be the area where eventually, if carried out, the opiate trial will be placed. I would think that we would need to think very carefully about placing it in that area as presently staffed. I was also concerned very much by the training section we discovered in Endeavour House, Manuka. I think the committee's report says it all and I commend attention to that issue.
Mr Speaker, when the Appropriation Bill comes up we will say more about the non-government schools funding decisions and, of course, I have said it all on the police funding. I do not, with respect, agree with Mr Kaine's comments in relation to the acceptability of the cut. I have explained that elsewhere, in an article in the Canberra Times. I will not bore the Assembly by repeating it.
I want to move to a more notable issue, and that is the inability to extract from Mr Berry any information on the Bruce Stadium matter. I have some prepared comments and I propose to read them into the record. The most notable issue surrounding the move by the Raiders football team from Seiffert Oval at Queanbeyan to Bruce Stadium in the ACT is the lack of information given to the public, then and now. The origins of the Bruce Stadium affair predate self-government and there is a deal of documentation and oral history which reposes still with current and former Federal Ministers, their departments and advisers. The Bruce papers also throw light on the management style of the Canberra District Rugby League Football Club Ltd.
As Minister, I called for all the papers relating to the making of an agreement with the Canberra Raiders for the use of Bruce Stadium. I insisted on seeing the actual files. The documents which were collected for me by my then Law Office appeared to have originated in the then Office of Industry and Development. The ACT Government paperwork seems to have its origin in the OID under its then responsible Minister, Mr Paul Whalan. The merest analysis will show that the papers were incomplete.
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