Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1995 Week 9 Hansard (23 November) . . Page.. 2405 ..

MR SPEAKER: Mr Berry, you are straying into Division 50.

Mr Stefaniak: Mr Speaker, I will take a point of order on that. Mr Berry is straying rather badly into Division 50.

MR BERRY: I will move on, if you like.

MR SPEAKER: No; move back to Division 40, the Chief Minister's Department. That is what we are discussing.

MR BERRY: I will, too. Funding for the Inanna refuge, which provides crisis accommodation for mentally ill women and their children, has been reduced by approximately a third.

Mrs Carnell: You cut it the year before last.

MR BERRY: Red Cross Youth Health has been defunded and the Tamar Counselling Centre for survivors of child sexual abuse has been defunded. It is no good bleating, Mrs Carnell, that we did something a few years ago. We are talking about your budget.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR BERRY (7.12): Mr Speaker, I seek a short extension.

MR SPEAKER: You are entitled to another 10 minutes, if you wish to take it.

MR BERRY: I have not quite finished. It will not take long. When you have a look at what has happened within the public health system, access for women is an area which will be affected because it goes to the issue of the provision of public health services.

Mr Speaker, I think that the community has been sadly let down by the budget which has been prepared, particularly in relation to Division 40, the Chief Minister's Department, for the reasons that I have brought to your attention. This is a government that does not have any commitment to social justice. You only have to see what it is setting out to do in public transport and all those sorts of things. That is directed mostly by the sorts of philosophies which are entrenched in the Chief Minister's Department. Labor will be opposing this division of the budget and we will be opposing the budget overall, because this is a budget without a soul and without any commitment to social justice.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Department of Health and Community Care

Proposed expenditure - Division 50, Health and Community Care, $301,652,500

MR CONNOLLY (7.15): Mr Speaker, I am somewhat surprised that the Government has not come forward with some amendments in relation to this budget line. I say that not only because the Estimates Committee, including members of the Government party, unanimously recommended some additional funding here for items like mental health,

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .