Page 3197 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 September 1993
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MR BERRY: Would you like to be first in an unplanned process? No fear; not you. I know that you would go to Sydney.
Mrs Carnell: That is where everyone goes now.
MR BERRY: This Government started up the process to establish a cardio-thoracic unit. We are the only ones that will carry it through. You did not even start it.
Chief Minister's Department
MS ELLIS: My question is directed to the Chief Minister. I ask: Can the Chief Minister inform the Assembly of the identity of the units within her department which, according to today's Canberra Times, are expensive luxuries producing little in the way of visible results?
MS FOLLETT: I thank Ms Ellis for the question. It is indeed an intriguing comment in today's Canberra Times. It is all the more intriguing because they have not actually hazarded a guess or a comment on what areas or what functions they consider are expensive luxuries. Perhaps the Canberra Times will favour us with a follow-up story and let us know which of the functions they consider to be expensive luxuries.
Perhaps they consider the Tourism Commission to be an expensive luxury, but I most certainly do not. I believe that promoting Canberra as a tourist destination and so supporting one of our largest industries in the Territory - an industry which supports 8,000 jobs here - is certainly not an expensive luxury; nor do I believe that it produces little in the way of visible results. The results are there in our tourism numbers for everybody to see. I think the same can be said for the very intensive work that is carried on in the Office of Public Sector Management. They are developing, as members will know, the separate ACT public service, and they work with all of the agencies within the ACT Administration to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the service delivery to our community. I consider, again, that this is not an expensive luxury and that the OPSM does produce visible results.
I believe also that the provision of occupational health and safety advice and services to both the public and private sectors is a vital function. There is no way in the world that you could call this an expensive luxury, although in debate yesterday we heard members opposite decrying occupational health and safety as nothing more than an impost on business. This is nonsense. My Government will give every support to providing a safe workplace for the workers of this Territory, and that is a tangible result that is achieved by this area of my department.
Similarly, the provision of support services on the streets to young people through the Youth Affairs Unit or information on domestic violence or on a range of other issues affecting women through the Women's Information and Referral Centre could never be regarded as expensive luxuries. They do produce tangible results for this community. The reforms that are taking place in relation to concessions, in relation to people with a mental dysfunction, employer supported child-care, and our relations with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
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