Page 761 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 13 April 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The participation rate by women in sport, though the highest in Australia, is still lower than that for males, and we have to encourage and develop that commitment further. In line with our past commitment, there has been some grant assistance to the ACT Association for Women in Sport and Recreation to develop a strategy for increasing the participation of women in sport. The report Gender Equity in ACT Sport: Not Just a Women's Issue was released in late 1993, and it has recommended a number of strategies. I know that they will be focused on. That grants program, of course, has been a gem for the development of sport.
In November 1992 I launched the ACT Junior Sports Council study, a mapping of participation rates in junior sport in the ACT. That study was the result of collaboration between the ACT Government, the Australian Sports Commission and the ACT Department of Education and Training. I am very proud to have been associated with that development. We have a job in front of us to develop the participation rates of young people in sport. The major job, of course, is to keep young women and young men involved and to continue to develop our focus in those areas.
I come to health. The Department of Health, of course, was established under the combined operation of the Health Act and the Health (Consequential Provisions) Act on 1 July 1993. That occurred as a consequence of the board chairman and others resigning, which of course flowed from the constant harassment by the Liberals in concert with the Moore-Stevenson group. Those people resigned, the board evaporated, and the Department of Health was established. The department's mission is to be responsive to community needs, to be accessible, to continually improve the quality of service, to provide value for money and to be a healthy organisation with a strong sense of purpose. All of those things are matters upon which this Labor Government has focused.
The new Medicare agreement, which covers the period 1 July 1993 to 30 June 1998, was signed by the ACT and Commonwealth governments on 29 January 1993. Mind you, we would have had some difficulty had the Liberals gained office in their claim to fame in the last Federal election. I am pleased to say that they did not, and Medicare survives. Medicare survives despite them. It will continue to survive, because I do not think the Liberals are game to talk about it any more. They did threaten it; they did not support it. Labor won, and Labor will continue to win on those grounds, because people will remember and distrust the Liberals for evermore on health care.
The Canberra clinical school was announced on 2 March 1993. I remember the brief period of Labor's office in 1989. There was some pressure then to establish the clinical school. Of course, we then went into the abysmal period of the Alliance Government, and under Mr Humphries nothing was done. By 2 March 1993 a memorandum of understanding between the ACT Government and the University of Sydney to establish a clinical school in the ACT was signed. That school will be affiliated with the whole public health system rather than one hospital alone. The school will begin taking students in 1995. The school will assist ACT Health to enhance health care standards for the community, and it will foster a learning and self-improving environment in the health system. It will also improve the ACT's capacity to attract and retain high-quality clinical staff. The inaugural associate dean, Professor Paul Gatenby, commenced his appointment on 11 April. That school will change forever the way that the ACT health system delivers
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .