Page 3014 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 September 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
the last fortnight in order to have the splint fitted. The cost has meant that putting food on the table for her and her children is going to be very difficult this month. Mr Connolly, how can you justify making ordinary Aussie battlers like this suffer? Do you think this is a health system based on social justice?
MR CONNOLLY: Madam Speaker, what a silly question! How can I comment on yet another alleged case involving alleged actions involving alleged individuals? If Mr Stefaniak wants me to investigate a constituent matter, I am happy to do so; but, the forum of question time to do this is just silly politics. Mr Stefaniak, be very careful when talking about social justice in the health system, because your leader has promised to cut $31m out of the health budget. If we have problems affording things now, Mr Stefaniak, how are we going to be able to provide bounty for everybody and everything that anybody wants as long as you want it, as Mrs Carnell will promise it? How we can do that while taking $31m out of our health system beats me.
Mr Stefaniak, if you seriously want to have constituent matters referred to - you have been back in the Assembly for only a couple of weeks - I can assure you that my office will always cooperate. If you ask your colleagues, you will know that these sorts of matters are always dealt with. Of course I cannot answer about an individual whose name I do not know and whose circumstances I do not know, and answer some vague allegations that are made here. If you want a serious answer to constituent inquiries, contact me through my office and we will have the matter investigated. If you want to make silly political stunts, keep doing so.
Hospice
MS ELLIS: Madam Speaker, my question is also directed to the Minister for Health. I ask: Can the Minister inform this Assembly whether the Government is planning to duplicate the hospice on Acton Peninsula, as suggested by the Leader of the Opposition?
MR CONNOLLY: Again, "Quick draw" Carnell; make a promise every day about the grand vision! But there was some confusion, which has yet to be resolved - and this may be the opportunity for Mrs Carnell to resolve it - over the grand vision of the Opposition for the Calvary campus. When that was announced there were announcements that there would be a hospice at Calvary. I read of enthusiastic Liberal Party candidates for the seat of Belconnen promising that the hospice would be built at Calvary.
Of course, it was well known, it was a matter of public record, that at that stage construction was well and truly under way for the hospice at Acton Peninsula; that it has been funded; that there is $1.48m in funding on the table; that there are negotiations going on with the community sector about the future operation of that hospice. Here we have a promise by a Liberal candidate, "No, we will build it at Calvary". In a talkback radio discussion Mrs Carnell, when asked, "Are you going to build two?", seemed to retreat from building the hospice at Calvary when it was obvious that one had been built at Acton Peninsula. I thought, "Well, that is it; they have retreated from that".
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .