Page 1779 - Week 06 - Thursday, 19 May 1994
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We also believe that something very central to Australia is our sporting achievements. We suggested - this showed somewhat of a bias in the Liberal Party offices - that the centenary of Federation should be marked by a one-day cricket competition involving all the Sheffield Shield teams, and including the Northern Territory and the ACT, at the Manuka Oval. There is somewhat of a bias on this side of the house. We also suggested that we should come together in celebration with concerts by Australian performers in the various areas of music, including Aboriginal artists and multicultural artists. That could be based around the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin.
Mr De Domenico: And country and western, too.
MRS CARNELL: I did not say it, but I intimated it. We did go on to suggest, not for the first time, that we should recognise the year 2001 as the Australian year for science and research. We believe strongly that science and research are regularly overlooked, and they are the future of this nation. We suggest that this year be looked at as a way of really pushing the tremendous achievements Australians have made in this area. We went on and suggested a number of other projects; but, to save time, I ask for leave to table our paper.
Leave granted.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
Discussion of Matter of Public Importance
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Westende): Madam Speaker has received a letter from Mrs Carnell proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Assembly for discussion, namely:
The need for the ACT Government to urgently re-assess the way it has managed the Department of Health for the last three years.
MRS CARNELL (Leader of the Opposition) (3.42): Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, once upon a time there was a crisis in health management, a crisis that the Government overlooked; but that was until last Saturday. Until last Saturday everybody thought that Canberra's waiting lists for elective surgery were double the national average. We believed that two out of every five patients were waiting longer than six months for surgery. We also knew that our public hospital costs were 30 per cent higher than the national average, and had been that way for at least three years, and that the health budget was heading for another record blow-out of some $9m. But last Saturday that all changed. I encountered what was a revelation for me. Lying on the front lawn of my home was the Canberra Times. I picked up the paper from the front lawn and saw a simple little headline which read, "Connolly working to cure the poor state of health". Of course, that changed the world.
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