Page 2059 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 8 September 1992
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A number of members spoke in broad terms during the debate on the motion to suspend standing orders. It is appropriate that the committee have the opportunity to consider the issues raised by Mr Berry for debate. I would like to respond to one of those points. Mr Berry's officers did come and give evidence. As always, they were very competent in providing the information that we requested. Unfortunately, it was clear to me - and, I would imagine, other members of the committee - that the Minister had given the officers their instructions only a very short while prior to their appearing before us, and they were not able to give us any details of the costings or management of the methodology that this legislation implies.
Madam Speaker, it is likely that the select committee will seek to speak to those officers again and try to get some more extensive answers as part of looking at the legislation and trying to work out what will be in the best interests of the people of the ACT but, most importantly, what will be in the best interests of the users whom the service will be designed to benefit. I think that should be our highest priority. That does not mean to say that we will not take into account all of the other issues. Of course we will. I look forward to working with Mrs Grassby and Mrs Carnell on this, with as open a mind as we have had in discussing all the other issues up until now.
MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (9.16): I recall the debate about the Bill proposed by the Liberals. It was felt at the time that Bill was introduced that perhaps it ought to go to the committee. Mr Moore described that Bill as a Bill that would facilitate the development of another methadone program or something else. It puzzles me that a Bill providing for the privatisation of the program was one that facilitated but that a Bill that ensures that the program remains in the public sector does not seem to be a Bill that facilitates.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (9.17): Madam Speaker, I was talking to a man in the street the other day.
Mr De Domenico: Was he a reasonable person? Was he a reasonable sort of a bloke?
MR KAINE: He was a reasonable man in the street. In fact, I do this very often. Sometimes when I walk from here across to the post office, perhaps half-a-dozen reasonable and ordinary men in the street stop me and want to talk about all kinds of subjects. This particular reasonable and ordinary man in the street complimented me on the Bill that Mrs Carnell had put forward in connection with the methadone program. That was rather odd, I thought, because he thought that this was a very good - - -
Mr Connolly: Was he wearing a white coat?
MR KAINE: No, he was not; and he was not looking for you either. The fact was that he understood the ramifications of the Bill put forward by Mrs Carnell. This morning I ran into the same ordinary and reasonable man in the street, and he said, "What is this complication that has been thrown into the ring by the Government producing their own Bill? Is this another case of the tortoise trying to catch the hare in the legislative business? We had a good Bill which we understood, and now here comes the Government with another one". Here tonight we discover that, in fact, there is another one. It is different to the one that Mrs Carnell put forward.
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