Page 2649 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 1993
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charge market rent. That is what is done, to my knowledge. In this circumstance, though, that is not happening. What is happening is that we are spending taxpayers' money to refurbish a building and then not charging market rent. So, no matter how you look at it, you are providing recurrent funding for a profitable private operation, an organisation that has made profits over the last couple of years.
I support the provision of abortion clinics. Therefore, what we should be doing is providing a level playing field. In every other State where abortions are available they are provided by the private sector as commercially viable operations, not in rent-free accommodation. What the Government is doing is providing taxpayers' money to prop up a private operation. Quite seriously, that is not good economics. If we believe in that, if we believe that public money should be spent that way, then there is a number of other health facilities that could be provided that way.
Mr Connolly: Mrs Carnell is having a bob each way.
Mr Lamont: Do we stop doctors doing that in health centres?
MADAM SPEAKER: Members, order, please! Mrs Carnell has the floor.
MRS CARNELL: What we have to look at here is the appropriateness of providing public money to a profitable private organisation regardless of what that organisation is providing. I believe that abortion is an important topic. It is a topic that people feel strongly about. There are people like me who believe that it is an appropriate thing for a woman to choose to do, and there are people like my colleagues who believe that it is murder. Therefore, to use their money, the money of the 50 per cent or 40 per cent - I do not know the number - of the community who believe that it is murder specifically for this purpose without it being an election issue, to use your words, upon which they had an opportunity to vote, is totally inappropriate. I support the fact that those people have a right to choose as well.
MR MOORE (11.42): Madam Speaker, it would seem that Mrs Carnell wants to back this in the same way that she backs her own horses - an each-way bet - and it is just not available, Madam Speaker.
Mr Cornwell: That comes well from you, Michael.
MR MOORE: Madam Speaker, I have never moved my position on this issue, not in the slightest. I have always made it very clear that I support a woman's right to choose. Far be it from me to reflect on a previous vote of the Assembly.
Mr Lamont: You would not do that.
MR MOORE: I would not do that, Madam Speaker; I have always been consistent. The issue today is equity and access. We have people who support the notion that a woman has the right to choose, but we seem to have a problem over which women have the right to choose. It is determined on the amount of money that they have. That is how the access is determined. Madam Speaker, this will allow women who do not have access to money the right to choose.
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