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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3559 ..

Mrs Littlewood: Are you supportive of retrospective overtime payments, Mr Berry? Are you supportive of not paying people for overtime?

MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR BERRY: I challenge the Chief Minister, if she is likely to support or run dead on the issue of a goods and services tax, first of all to try it here in the ACT Legislative Assembly to see how well it travels.

Mrs Carnell drew attention to the issue of health. It is true that there is a need to attract more funding for health because of the particular problems which have faced it over the years. One intriguing position which I found noteworthy was the Chief Minister's move for supplementation for the decline in income arising from falling health insurance out there in the community. Whilst this is an appropriate course for the Government to take, I wonder how the Chief Minister could pursue such a course when at the same time here in the ACT she is attempting to discourage people who have private health insurance from using the public hospital system.

In fact, what she is attempting to do is create a problem with the establishment of a new private hospital, which has in turn said that its intent is to draw into the new private hospital people from the public system who are privately insured. Then we have the Chief Minister going to the Prime Minister and saying, "I need more money for my hospitals because of declining income". I would be surprised if the Prime Minister was particularly sympathetic to the ACT's view if he were to become aware fully that the ACT was also doing its bit to attract business away from the public hospital system, particularly business which was privately insured.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I saw the Prime Minister's announcement in relation to Australia's drug problem. It was a narrow vision from a small-minded Federal Government when it comes to the issue of drugs. As we well know, the opportunity in relation to an improved approach to dealing with the issue of illicit drugs by way of consideration of prescription heroin to registered addicts is now lost and the Prime Minister has come forward with $87m for the whole of Australia. On the face of it, it looks like a drop in the ocean. It is much less than had previously been taken out of relevant budgets across the country. I see the Chief Minister's comments in relation to the Prime Minister's position and I see that she is not particularly sympathetic to it. Neither should she be, and she is to be congratulated for her caution about the Prime Minister's position because it is indeed inadequate.

I go back to my original point. The problem here is the way that these COAG meetings are approached and the ideology that drives it. I noticed that the Queensland Government and the New South Wales Government made it very clear that they are not interested in a GST. I would like to see the Chief Minister of the ACT Government make a very clear statement in relation to the matter as well. Mrs Carnell is trying to distance herself from the philosophical position. You have a responsibility to the people in the ACT, particularly those on low incomes, to declare yourself in relation to these COAG meetings in so far as the goods and services tax is concerned. It would be a cowardly act if you were to ignore the challenge to declare yourself. You should declare your position in

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