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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 1 Hansard (17 February) . . Page.. 234 ..

Mr Moore: On the point of order, Mr Speaker: I would ask that you give Mr Berry exactly the same treatment as you gave me. Through almost my entire speech there were interjections from almost every member of the Labor Party, as you may recall.

MR SPEAKER: Yes, that is quite correct. I would ask all members of the house to come to order.

Mr Hargreaves: Not this little black duck.

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Hargreaves, you are not helping, and you have just taken a point of order against the very thing you are now abusing.

MR BERRY: While I am talking about the methadone program, Mr Speaker, let me say what the Liberals have done, with Moore, the other Liberal. The answer to the problem with methadone is to privatise it even a little bit more and make those who need this important drug to assist them to get off heroin pay some more. We make them pay some more. So, we privatise it a little bit more.

Mr Moore: The answer to the problem, Wayne Berry, is to make sure that people are not waiting, no matter where they get their service.

MR BERRY: I will get to you in a minute, Mr Moore. Be quiet.

Mr Moore: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: The issue of relevance is particularly pertinent here. Mr Berry said, "I will get to you in a minute, Mr Moore". But, of course, the motion is entirely about the Minister for Health. So, quite clearly, the rest of his speech has been irrelevant.

MR BERRY: The Chief Minister made a contribution. I am responding to that.

MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order. I would remind all members that we are debating Mr Stanhope's motion with an amendment put forward by Ms Tucker. Please get on with it.

MR BERRY: Another claim to fame is that Mrs Carnell arranged for the building of a private hospital. This gets to the ideological question that Ms Tucker pointed to earlier. It is about shifting responsibility for the health system away from her Government, trying to force people out of the public system and into the private system. There is no question about that. That is what it was all about. There was also, in a business sense, an impact on local business which they were not adequately consulted about.

Mrs Carnell also said that Labor promised, I think, a long-stay rehabilitation centre, a ward, or something to that effect. I do recall that we did offer something of that order and we offered to put it on Acton Peninsula, in the buildings there. But Mrs Carnell blew them up. Mr Speaker, those are issues that the Chief Minister ought not to crow about.

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