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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 4641 ..

Ms McRae: Yes, that is what people care about, Mrs Carnell. You might mock, but people like that.

MRS CARNELL: Ms McRae comments that that is what people like. Mr Speaker, it does go on from that, and I could quote at length about the fact that 50 per cent of people are vegetarians - I think it is actually more than that - and most of our health budget is in health prevention. There are all sorts of very nice ideas but, Mr Speaker, not exactly the sorts of things that are going to produce jobs or get the economics of the ACT back on track.

Mr Speaker, the comments that have been made about the commitment of the Commonwealth to the strategic plan obviously mean that those opposite or the other people in this Assembly are just attempting to mislead the people of Canberra on this issue. The whole document was put together by a mix of people from the NCA and the ACT Government. The fact is that the Commonwealth in no way has walked away from this document. We believed, very strongly, that it was important to get this document out into the community. We promised the people of Canberra and the large number of people who put in responses to this document that the document would be out by the end of September. That was the time when, to a large extent, we had finished our part of it. The Commonwealth, because they might have had one or two other things on their plates, I have to say, were dragging their feet a little. They decided that they needed to put the document through their whole departmental process. They decided to ask all departments for coordinating comments on the document. They determined that it may need to go to Cabinet. They decided that it might need to go to the joint parliamentary committee on the ACT.

All that is fine, Mr Speaker, but that could easily take another few months. We had promised the people of Canberra that we would have a document out by the end of September. I felt, and still feel very strongly, that if you say you are going to do something you do it. You do not allow the timeframe to continue to blow out and out. We made that clear. I spoke to the Minister involved about the issue. He said he certainly supported the direction of the document, as has the Prime Minister. In fact, Warwick Smith made that comment in the media - that he supports the direction of the document. There is just a significant bureaucratic process that needs to be achieved in the Commonwealth. The reality, Mr Speaker, is that this is an ACT strategic plan. It is one that we have comments on from both the Prime Minister and - - -

Debate interrupted.

MR SPEAKER: Order! It being 5 o'clock, I propose the question:

That the Assembly do now adjourn.

Mr De Domenico: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.

Question resolved in the negative.

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