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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (22 February) . . Page.. 207 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

Bulk-billing doctors have been sacked; Melba Health Centre has been closed; services at other centres have been downgraded. They have broken promises that impact most severely on families, the aged, the sick of course, and those who need local community health services. That demonstrates just how little regard this Liberal Government has for the Canberra community.

Mr Hird, a so-called Belconnen member of this place, had the gall to tell Belconnen residents that it is only a short walk from Melba to Florey or Hawker. I bet Mr Hird has never walked it, especially not pushing a pram, holding a toddler by the hand or using a walking stick. In fact, that is the way that many of the people in our community have to get around. I bet that not one member of the Government has ever walked the distance between those points. Clearly, if they had, they would not have shut down the health facilities. I could go on and on. As Mrs Carnell says, the list goes on. In the area of planning, there have been promises broken directly. Mr Humphries did not even apologise for it. He just said, "We are promising it".

In the area of youth, our young people last year might have thought they would get a better deal under Mrs Carnell. In fact, they have not even been consulted. The promise was to maintain and enhance the role of the ACT Youth Advisory Council. That promise has been broken in the worst possible way. The Advisory Council has been allowed to lapse. There is certainly no council at present and no consultation either. The Liberals, of course, also promised to improve late night bus services as one of their youth initiatives. Not only has that not been delivered but the existing Nightrider bus service was cancelled.

I could go on at great length and detail all of the promises broken by Mrs Carnell. I will instead seek to table the document which lists the 32 promises broken so far. I have not included the ones where I have given you the benefit of the doubt and which have not yet been delivered but which could still be delivered in the two years remaining to you. I seek leave to table that document. Even my own list is far from exhaustive. I do believe that it is correct to say that the Canberra community has had a disastrous result from its flirtation with a Liberal government and that the Canberra community has been treated with the utmost contempt, with disastrous consequences for our community.

MR SPEAKER: Did you seek leave to table a document?

MS FOLLETT: I did, Mr Speaker.

Leave granted.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (3.57): Mr Speaker, I think we need to understand that Ms Follett just did the greatest amount of selective quoting of figures that I have heard her do since she was Treasurer, when she used to do it as well. The reality of the situation is that the ACT economy is still very sluggish. We inherited a Consolidated Fund with a count of zero. We inherited a situation where building approvals had fallen for, I think, 17 months in a row. We inherited a situation where only 700 jobs had been produced in the previous 12 months. We inherited a situation where business believed that the ACT was simply not the place to be. What we have done - - -

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