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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1998 Week 6 Hansard (3 September) . . Page.. 1897 ..

MR OSBORNE: My question is to the Chief Minister and it is in relation to the Olympics. I know that you have been a big supporter of sport, so my question to you is this: Do you support the call by the Australian Olympic Committee, and I believe SOCOG, that drug cheats be gaoled for life?

MS CARNELL: No.

MR OSBORNE: That is interesting. Have you let SOCOG and the Australian Olympic Committee know that you disagree with their views on drug cheats?

MS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I do not think I have ever kept my views terribly secret, but the reason I do not think I would support gaoling for life is that at $54,000 a year the cost would be a bit heavy. I am sure that everybody in this Assembly believes that sensible and very stringent rules with regard to drugs in sport must be part of this Olympics. This must be the drug-free Olympics.

MR HARGREAVES: My question is to the Minister for Health and Community Care. Yesterday the Minister confirmed that the contract with ACTION to transport rehabilitation patients to Canberra Hospital had been cancelled as a cost-cutting exercise. Can the Minister confirm information given to the Estimates Committee that a 14 per cent increase for salaried medical officers has been negotiated and that savings generated through service program changes in the hospital will contribute the cash to address this increase?

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, in answering this question I will seek not to go back to my days as a member on the crossbenches when the Labor Government was in. I was reminded of it so clearly when Mr Berry stood to answer his question. The way Mr Berry answered his questions today was basically how he answered almost every question when he was a Minister. The negotiations for salaried specialists and VMOs were based on a set of parameters to line us up with New South Wales.

Issues raised by Mr Berry in the debate on the budget and implied in Mr Hargreaves's question today suggest that we should make sure that we do all other negotiations in exactly the same way as we did them with salaried specialists; that it would be just as logical to say that we should carry out other negotiations in exactly the same way as we have with the VMOs and seek to cut in the order of 15 per cent from people's salary. No, Mr Hargreaves, I am not going to be seeking to make the same cuts as I made to VMOs, nor am I going to seek to use exactly the same processes as we have used with salaried specialists, nor am I going to use the same processes as we have used with salaried specialists when we do other negotiations.

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