Page 217 - Week 01 - Thursday, 18 February 1993
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Mr De Domenico: When was that?
MRS CARNELL: It was four months before all the other stuff. The letter continued:
to adopt, by reference, Schedules to the National Health and Medical Research Council's Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Drugs and Poisons and to control exceptionally dangerous Schedule 7 poisons.
In other words, it is the legislation we have in front of us today. I can actually table that letter if anybody is overly interested.
Mr De Domenico: Is it prefaced with the words, "I had a dream"?
MRS CARNELL: No, he said in the letter in June that the draft Bills had been prepared. This letter said categorically, and that was in June 1992, that the Bills had already been drafted. In fact, when I left the Board of Health in the previous year the drafting was in the final stages according to information given to the board. In fact, the board was told that the drafting of these Bills was an exceedingly simple task.
So what were Mr Berry and Mr Lamont talking about in their speeches in October? I would hate to think that they were deliberately trying to mislead the house, so all I can assume is that it was sheer bloody-mindedness. It was bloody-mindedness that meant that they would rather cost hayfever sufferers in the ACT in excess of $100 than agree with the Liberals on anything. I do not think that is good enough, Madam Speaker, and I do not think the people of the ACT should believe that it is good enough either. They have a right to expect more. Now at least we do have the pieces of legislation in front of us - that is, legislation that was ready last June. It is still very hard to see where the dreadful complexity mentioned by Mr Berry came from, a complexity that meant that these pieces of legislation took over two years to draft - that is, over two years from the time the Minister first promised that the legislation would be dealt with as a priority.
This delay became even harder to accept when, on Tuesday this week, the Minister tabled the Health Bill and the Health (Consequential Provisions) Bill. Somehow these Bills were drafted in only a few weeks and during January, a month in which we all know it is very hard to get anything drafted. This is tremendously surprising. The Health Bill is complex in nature. It has many flowthrough effects and has a very definite financial implication, yet these Bills could be drafted within weeks. Could it be because in the eye of the Government they are politically correct, ideologically sound and therefore must be pushed through? This is at the same time as Bills like the ones in front of us today, which only have as their aim achieving a more efficient health system for the benefit of Canberrans, take two years. It is two years for Bills that make our health system better and two weeks for Bills that enshrine Medicare in legislation and get rid of the Board of Health. I find this absolutely amazing.
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