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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (29 June) . . Page.. 2291 ..

MR RUGENDYKE (continuing):

Mr Moore's drugs agenda has concerned me greatly. How long will it take for it to creep into health policy? Mr Speaker, we see it happening. We see it happening with this proposal. I think it is not appropriate. I do not like it. I oppose it. I would like to see it stopped.

Mr Speaker, the Labor Party has always opposed budgets. Surely there is a double standard there. It is all right for you to oppose a budget but it is not okay for me.

Mr Stanhope: No, that's fine, mate. But attack that mob over there, mate. We are the opposition. Keep them accountable.

MR RUGENDYKE: Thank you. If the Labor Party wins office after tonight somehow and they put up their shooting gallery, I will oppose it too. We do not know what will happen tonight. The budget might get through. Who knows what the dynamics will be over the next few months, subject to the outcome of this debate tonight. Mr Speaker, $800,000 out of a $1.6 billion budget is a very measly amount for a government to fall. If that happens, they ought to be ashamed of themselves-to fall on an issue that is not even their party's policy.

Mr Speaker, I am opposed to shooting galleries. I cannot say that louder or clearer. I will not support this issue, in whichever form it is offered. The drug users that I know will not use this thing. (Extension of time granted.) The drug users that I know do not have the capacity to clean their teeth in the morning, let alone how to work out how to catch a bus to wherever this thing might be.

Supposedly, it is to be set up in the old QEII hospital, out of the city. Those in the city heart do not want it in their street, so flick it out to the western part of the city that is neglected anyway. What about the child-care centre across the road? What about the senior cits across the road? What about the business people who are outraged that they will have this thing set up across the road from their businesses? Has the honey-pot effect been considered? I doubt it, along with a lot of other things that have not been considered. I will not go into the things that have been exposed as unthought of. They are well known.

Mr Speaker, I will not be supporting this line of the budget, and I will not be supporting a budget with money in it for a shooting gallery.

MR OSBORNE (5.52): Mr Speaker, I think this particular line of the budget has given me a great deal more anxiety than all other budgets in previous years put together. While I have had quite a lot of advice given to me about what I should do about this budget this year, I must admit to finding much of it quite laughable.

Like other members of the Labor Party and Ms Tucker, Mr Kaine and Mr Rugendyke, I have compared the details of each line of this budget to my policies, weighed up the relative merits and shortcomings of various funding proposals, and then made my decisions accordingly. I have stated several times in the past that I believe in stable government and the necessity for a government to have its budget voted through each year. However, I have found the budget this year to be quite unique for a number of reasons. Before I speak about those in more detail, and the shooting gallery in particular,

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