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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 11 Hansard (26 September) . . Page.. 3502 ..

MR OSBORNE (continuing):

And then, Jose Manuel Miguel Xaviar Gonzales, I further command that such officer or officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing shall remain but bare, bleached bones of a cold blooded, copper coloured, blood thirsty, throat cutting, chilli eating, sheep herding murdering son of a bitch.

Mr Speaker, some advice for our new magistrate.

MR SPEAKER: Mr Osborne, I trust you were not reflecting on the judiciary.

MR OSBORNE: It was just some well-intentioned advice for our new magistrate.

MR MOORE (4.59): How does one follow that in an adjournment debate by speaking about the bubble over the Civic pool? Mr Speaker, there has been quite some concern in my electorate. It is nice for me to talk about my electorate while standing next to Mr Osborne. It is the centre of Canberra, the very hub of life, Mr Osborne. It is my understanding that the Government has tendered out the management of our pools. One of the issues that have been raised has been the decision of the new management of the Civic pool to maintain the bubble over the pool right through the summer period. I would like to know from the Minister for Sport whether the tender had in it any requirement for the management to ensure that the Civic pool is available for community facilities, school sports and other things, which I believe would not be able to be facilitated if this bubble remains over the pool.

I have no problem, Mr Speaker, with the management slightly changing things after appropriate consultation. I have, in fact, said on a number of occasions that we ought to have a slightly different time scheme for the pool, but I think that to make an arbitrary decision of the type that Mrs Carnell has been making in the last little while, to simply leave that bubble up without consultation with the users and the community, is totally inappropriate. I ask the Minister to find out just what is going on and ensure that we have appropriate control to provide this facility for what it is there for - not to make a profit but as a service to the community. That is its prime goal. If it can be done on a reasonable financial basis or a better financial basis, I do not have a problem with that.

The second thing I would like to raise in the adjournment debate today, Mr Speaker, concerns the issue of euthanasia. On Sunday, Mr Speaker, the Northern Territory legislation provided an opportunity for a man who had been suffering for quite some time from cancer - a man who had been to a pain specialist and to a psychiatrist, and who had been with his own doctor for some time - to make his own choice. The legislation there provided him with the opportunity to make his own choice. By the choice that he made, Mr Speaker, he was able to end his suffering after going through such a long process.

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