Page 1684 - Week 06 - Thursday, 20 May 1993
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MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (3.28), in reply: I heard the issues that were raised in what I think I could fairly describe as a fairly churlish tone. The sneering contempt that you hear sometimes from Mr Cornwell about the provision of services in the ACT earns him no respect, because I think most sportspeople in the ACT recognise that this Government has performed well in the area of the provision of sports facilities. You do not build the cricket pitch before the suburb is finished and, of course, not every piece of green space in the ACT is going to have a toilet block and a grandstand. There are playing fields, enclosed playing fields and district playing fields and other areas where people can pursue sport and recreation but which may never have the grand facilities that you seem to be pursuing for every sports location in the ACT. We just cannot afford it.
I think people misunderstand the Health Promotion Fund. It is not a sports promotion fund, and I have made that clear at every opportunity.
Mr Kaine: Didn't we set up the Health Promotion Fund?
MR BERRY: No, I set up the Health Promotion Fund.
Mr Humphries: He did not increase the amount available under the fund as he claimed.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! Mr Berry has the floor.
MR BERRY: Neither did you. It was increased by a small amount and it was consistent with our approach across the whole budget area. I think the Health Promotion Fund did pretty well. In 1989, when we came into office, there was nothing, and then all of a sudden there was a health promotion fund, courtesy of the Labor Government. To the credit of the Alliance Government, they continued with it and it survives today. It survives today, courtesy primarily of the generosity of smokers.
Mr Cornwell: Indeed. You did not increase the sports allocation for three years.
MR BERRY: It is not a sports promotion fund.
Mr Cornwell: I said "the sports allocation".
MR BERRY: I am sorry; you misunderstand how the Health Promotion Fund works. There is a division of the Health Promotion Fund, a percentage of the overall amount - - -
Mr Humphries: And some of it goes to sport.
MR BERRY: A percentage goes to sport.
Mr De Domenico: The percentage that goes to sport has not been increased by you.
MR BERRY: That is right, and neither have the other percentages; but the overall Health Promotion Fund has increased marginally.
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