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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3699 ..

Mr De Domenico: She was right there.

MRS CARNELL: She was right there; that is true. She said, "Put down your pencils because I am not actually going to give you any evidence right now. What I am going to do is spend a very long time talking about the things that make me unhappy". I can understand that lots of things make Ms Tucker unhappy; and it was very interesting to read her press release last night in which she said that she believed that our approach to government, our open and consultative style of government - and I will come to that a bit later - was not up to the speed that she would like.

She really got to the crunch of why she wanted to move this motion today when she said it was because I did not take her seriously. To quote Ms Tucker, I had been dismissive of her personal approaches to me on issues that are important to people. I accept that Ms Tucker may feel that way. In fact, it is extremely difficult not to be somewhat dismissive of this motion right now. But in the areas about which Ms Tucker has come to see me - and they were areas of disability - all of those issues have been referred to the Health Complaints Commissioner. Personally, I think Ken Patterson is the appropriate person to look at issues or complaints with regard to an individual's problems. But because Ms Tucker does not quite like that approach and does not get enough publicity from it, she decided to go down this path. It is a very unusual no-confidence motion, because Ms Tucker does not think I take her seriously enough. All I can say is: What do you say to a comment like that?

Mr Speaker, there are three elements to this motion today, as you know. One of them is that I have somehow failed to give sufficient priority to people most disadvantaged in this community. This is an interesting comment from Ms Tucker, who also in her media release last night said that this was not an issue of resourcing. She says quite categorically, "It was never my intention to move no confidence in the Minister over her current resourcing of mental health or disability". What we are talking about here is a failure to give sufficient priority to people most disadvantaged in our community, but we are not talking about resourcing, apparently.

It would appear that what Ms Tucker is saying is that somehow in Health we are spending too much money in areas other than disability and mental health. But we are spending record amounts in both mental health and disability. Ms Tucker did not for a moment suggest we were not spending record amounts; she did argue about the figures on how much those record amounts were but did not for a moment suggest they were not record amounts. If we are spending record amounts in mental health and disability, and if Ms Tucker is saying that this is not an issue about resourcing, then this sufficient priority issue is one on which I am having a large amount of trouble working out what Ms Tucker actually means. It is obviously not about money; it must somehow be about the sorts of things we are actually doing or the way we are managing disability or mental health.

Mr Speaker, the provision of appropriate high-quality services for people with disabilities is a major responsibility for any community. It is a responsibility that communities and certainly this Government do not take lightly. People with disabilities represent one of the most disadvantaged groups in our community. Often they have little or no opportunity to express their views or make a choice about things that affect their everyday lives.

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