Page 2083 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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When we come to the hospice, they have had money in the budget for three consecutive budget years now to build a hospice. It still is not there. Now they are putting in $800,000 to actually fit it out and run it for the first year. Where is it? It does not even exist yet. Another great part of the Berry-Connolly mythology is that we have a hospice. If you listen to Mr Connolly, we have a hospice because he is going to fit it out and run it this year.
Mr Humphries: It is an outdoor hospice.
MR KAINE: It must be.
Mr Humphries: They sleep under the stars.
MR KAINE: Yes, they are going to enjoy the stars and the frosts down on Acton Peninsula.
Mr Connolly: The building is there.
MR KAINE: You are hoist with your own petard, Mr Connolly. The Government staggers along from year to year. The Chief Minister put her finger on it three years ago when she said that the secret to budgeting was a nip here and a tuck there - the Follett nip and tuck budget concept - and she is still doing it. She is scattering $10,000 here and $50,000 there, and it just gets soaked up and is totally ineffective for almost everybody. They simply will not confront these big issues.
I am absolutely certain that 30,000 people over the age of 55 in this city woke up on Wednesday morning and read their Canberra Times and then retired in grief. They went back to bed, pulled the blankets over their head and said, "What the hell is the good of staying in this town? Nobody gives a hoot about us". The Government does not give a damn about anybody over the age of 55.
Ms Follett: You want to put all of them in nursing homes.
MR KAINE: If you do care, put some money where your mouths are.
Mr Lamont: You want to put them all in nursing homes. You want to pull the blankets over their heads. That is what you want to do. Let Mrs Carnell be your finance spokesman.
MR KAINE: Mr Lamont is chortling about the enclosed oval down at Tuggeranong. It does not exist, and is not going to exist this year, and probably not next year either.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! He is not chortling, he is interjecting; and that is out of order.
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