Page 4753 - Week 15 - Thursday, 16 December 1993
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I do not think it is any wonder, Madam Speaker, that half of the ACT is either on strike or in dispute, or, alternatively, before the Industrial Relations Commission.
The Minister did make one promise to all Canberrans, and that was the promise to get a hospice. What has happened with the hospice? We do not have a hospice because the Minister has bluffed, stonewalled and blustered. He will do anything but get a site that is agreeable to everybody. If you do not want to go to Calvary, Minister, just find a site and build a hospice. We need one. What did we see happen with the Health Promotion Fund? We saw it reduced. In 1992 it was 8.1 per cent of the tobacco revenue that was gained by the ACT Government. This year it is only 4 per cent. This is a Minister who claims that he cares about health promotion.
Minister, to sum up your performance, you told ABC radio in August, "We are on the way to a better health system". Well, we are not. Under your stewardship, ACT Health has gone backwards in 1993. I was going to give you two out of 10 for your performance this year. However, after hearing your comments on the Matt Abraham show this morning about Hare-Clark, I can give you only one out of 10. I gave him the one for that one caller who rang up in support of Mr Berry.
Mr De Domenico: Kate from O'Connor. I wonder who she was.
MRS CARNELL: Kate from O'Connor. It would not be Kate Lundy from the Trades and Labour Council. Just to give Mr Berry the benefit of the doubt, I think he should get a big one, and that is for turning up.
MR MOORE (4.17): Madam Speaker, in speaking to the matter of public importance today I have chosen to use parody as my method. I would like to congratulate the Assembly on the fine work it has done through this year. However, whilst doing so, I feel the need to express a few concerns on a number of consequential problems that I do not believe the Assembly really meant to cause.
It has come to my attention that an unemployed de facto couple were forced to give birth to their child in a Housing Trust stable at Gordon, as there were no obstetricians available in the Woden Valley Hospital. As it turned out, the birthing centre was full, as babies were finding their own ways out all over Canberra. However, apart from a few disgruntled Gordon neighbours screaming, "We were ripped off", the birth went without complications and mother and child are well. A short time after the birth, mother, babe and her male companion were visited by three strange men who had been under surveillance by the police since their arrival in this country from South East Asia. They were in dire need of a wash, and they had no passports or any other identification on them. After questioning and extensive body searching, it was discovered that these men were found in possession of an illicit substance called myrrh. They were duly charged with possession, distribution and supply of an illegal drug, with bail set at 20 barrels of the stuff. They will face trial, probably in about 1997.
A local shepherd who drove over to the stable on his tractor to pay a visit to the newly arrived neighbours was charged by police for driving an unregistered vehicle. "This is the only time the whole year that I have taken the tractor off the property", he said. "The ACT Government insists that I pay full rego for a tractor that travels only 40 yards across a street twice a year. Of course it is unregistered.
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