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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1838 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

This emotional questioning put forward by Ms Reilly ignores the facts. We have not ignored the needs of the ageing population in Canberra; nor have we ignored any reasonable requests from them. Every request and every complaint from a citizen - ageing, young, or in between - is taken very seriously by ACTION. They go and examine every case of a complaint. They talk to the people involved. In every case brought to my attention, we have gone back, in writing, and suggested how their problem might be resolved. In some cases the route of the buses has been changed to accommodate them.

The thrust of the question is that we are beating up on these poor old people. That is not the case. If Ms Reilly knows of any case where a member of the travelling public, particularly an older person, has a legitimate complaint about the way ACTION buses fail to meet their needs, a complaint which has not been acted upon after being lodged in the right place, I can assure her that it will be acted upon promptly. I doubt that she can put any such evidence on the table.

MR SPEAKER: Do you have a supplementary question, Ms Reilly?

MS REILLY: Thank you, Mr Speaker. That was fascinating, considering the reply I got from the Minister last week. Minister, is it not the case that your new-found compassion is based on opinion polls in your top drawer?

MR KAINE: My feeling is not a new-found compassion, Mr Speaker. I have long sympathised with the ageing, especially anybody over the age of 55. I sympathise greatly with them. I repeat that I do talk to them, and I am a member of the ACT Council on the Ageing. I do not just sit back in my office and smoke that stuff - whatever it is - and dream visions about things that I can attack the Government or the Opposition over. I make sure I have my facts straight first.

Mrs Carnell: I ask that all further questions be placed on the notice paper.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (3.41): Mr Speaker, for the information of members, I present the Government's response to the report on the Appropriation Bill 1997-98 of the Select Committee on Estimates 1997-98, which was presented to the Assembly on 17 June 1997. I move:

That the Assembly takes note of the paper.

I would like to thank the committee for its examination of the Government's budget estimates for 1997-98. The Government supports either in principle or in full, all but one of the recommendations. Mr Speaker, in this tabling statement I will not respond to all of the recommendations as they are outlined in the response. I would, however, like to take the opportunity to comment on some of the issues raised.

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