Page 2026 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 8 September 1992
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The Labor agenda is aimed at changing the fabric of our society in line with left-wing beliefs and whether the community likes it or not. It would have thrown a spanner into the works to talk about these proposals during the election campaign, because the Labor Party knows that the community does not approve. They knew that they would not be in government if they mentioned circuses, marijuana or a publicly funded abortion clinic, or for that matter X-rated videos.
Mr Lamont: A big porky; a pork pie.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! I would like to be able to hear Mrs Carnell.
Mr Humphries: I raise a point of order, Madam Speaker. Members opposite made reference to a "porky" or a "pork pie", which, as we all know, is a reference in rhyming slang to a lie. That clearly is unacceptable under parliamentary rules. I ask that those references be withdrawn.
Mr Lamont: Inasmuch as it was not referring to Canadian pork, I will withdraw, Madam Speaker.
MADAM SPEAKER: Thank you.
Mr Humphries: Mr Berry, I think, also made such a reference.
MADAM SPEAKER: I think the withdrawal was general.
MRS CARNELL: Thank you. So much for community consultation. The reaction to the survey of ratepayers and Housing Trust tenants says it all. When it comes down to it, what people are most concerned about in our society is bread-and-butter issues. They want to see opportunity, prosperity and security for themselves and for the community at large. The attitudes expressed in the ratepayers survey was that they wanted to see more money on community policing and less on the areas of government activity. Of course, Ms Follett's Government brushed that aside. It is just not palatable as far as Ms Follett is concerned. The survey does show quite clearly that the Government is simply wrong if it claims that it has a community mandate for its social agenda. What they do have is a mandate to govern wisely and in the interests of the basic bread-and-butter issues that are really the heart of people's concerns. Community consultation has been one of their unhonoured slogans. Social justice has been another.
There seem to have been some excellent examples of social injustice under this Government - for example, the recent 15.5 per cent increase in accommodation charges for the intellectually disabled. This increase is way ahead of the CPI. That has led to a situation where, in some cases, charges on an intellectually disabled person are more than the prescribed 87 per cent of their pension. The Labor Government should not be eating into the pensions of vulnerable people in this way. You have to wonder what the social agenda is of a government that takes advantage of intellectually disabled people.
The waiting list for hospital treatment is certainly not socially just. The waiting list is standing at 1,879. Is it socially just when pensioners have to wait for many months, in fact years in some cases, in the name of satisfying the Health Minister's lust for public provision, and public provision only? There were four companies interested in developing a new private hospital for Canberra. Such a project would have had enormous benefits for Canberrans by expanding
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