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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 7 Hansard (20 June) . . Page.. 2005 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

Mr Speaker, I rose to say that I have confirmed again the information about what happened yesterday.

Mrs Carnell: Did you ring the sharps hotline and ask?

MR WHITECROSS: Listen, Mrs Carnell, because you will learn. Mrs Carnell has a habit of trying to go on the front foot to short-pitched deliveries, and it is not a good idea. Mr Speaker, the story is this. The centre rang the Sharps Unit yesterday to have three syringes picked up - a practice which had been going on for some time. The officer said no, that they did not pick up from private buildings. They were told, "We are not a private building; we lease it from the Government". "We do not pick up from you either", was the reply. Mr Speaker, the conversation terminated normally, given the distress that you might expect in this situation. No mention was made of training or anything else.

Mrs Carnell: Did you ring the sharps hotline?

MR WHITECROSS: Keep listening, Mrs Carnell. This morning the Sharps Unit called the Civic Youth Centre to say that the officer should not have said what she said. They then turned up at the Civic Youth Centre with four bins, tongs and gloves - equipment which had never previously been supplied to the Civic Youth Centre, except when it was a needle exchange - and also reoffered the service of picking up sharps, notwithstanding that they were also offering the bins, tongs and gloves. Mr Speaker, Mr De Domenico and Mrs Carnell came into this place today with their dorothy dixers and attempted to turn their embarrassment over a change in policy - perhaps not by them; perhaps by their department - into an attack on me. The fact is, Mr Speaker, that the Sharps Unit did refuse yesterday. The Sharps Unit this morning did admit that what the officer had said yesterday was incorrect and it has remade the offer to collect sharps.

The Government have engaged this week, twice now, in a policy of going onto the front foot to a short-pitched delivery. Yesterday Mrs Carnell tried to go on the front foot when she got caught out with her bodgie operations figures and blamed Mr Berry for them. Today Mrs Carnell and Mr De Domenico tried to attack me for bringing to their attention a failure of their department to provide a service which had always been provided. Mr Speaker, Mrs Carnell and Mr De Domenico would do better to look to the administration of their departments and ensure that they follow Government policy, and not attack the Opposition for bringing their failures to their attention.

MR MOORE (3.50): Mr Speaker, I thought I would use the opportunity of the adjournment debate to add a little more to the stunt put on by the Liberals over trading hours. I have in my hands at the moment a page from the Trading Hours in the Australian Capital Territory report by ACIL Australia for the Economic Development Division of the Chief Minister's Department in April 1991. I quote from page 48, paragraph 4.12:

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