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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2419 ..
MR BERRY: No, it is not now, not any more. Those who deny the convention under the Westminster parliamentary system that governments fail when their budgets fail are deluding themselves. Mr Speaker, it is commonplace in other places for oppositions to vote against the budget.
You can always tell how deep a hole Kate Carnell and her government have dug for themselves when you see all the conservative commentators coming out in her defence, and this hole was a good one. The opportunity was offered to Mrs Carnell to find a way out of this hole. It was put to her by the Labor opposition, her former bipartisan partner in a piece of legislation which we thought would take the ACT forward in relation to drug law reform but which was abandoned in due course, notwithstanding the offer that was made by the Labor Party.
I want to refer to something that Mr Moore said some time ago. This, I am told, was taken from a Residents Rally paper that was prepared at some time in 1988 after Mr Moore presented it to the Residents Rally or drew its attention to it:
We believe that to be truly democratic decisions affecting the people of the Territory should be made not in party rooms by politicians with allegiances, ambitions and obligations outside the Territory, but in open forums under public scrutiny by people whose commitment is to the Territory alone.
I wonder why he is supporting this deal between Mr Humphries and the crossbenchers. With that in mind, I am informed that Mr Moore handed the following resignation to the Residents Rally:
Dear Alex,
The secretary, it appears:
Please accept this letter as a withdrawal of my membership from the Residents Rally. Henceforth I will be an independent member of the Legislative Assembly.
So much for that.
Mr Speaker, the last thing I want to talk about is in relation to the lives that may or may not have been protected and improved by this proposition. I was most disturbed to hear on ABC radio on 4 July the response by Mr Osborne to the following question:
... people that support that particular trial. They would argue, what about the lives that might have been saved by that injecting room? Does that concern you?
Mr Osborne said:
No, it doesn't and I don't believe it would save any lives.
He stands out by himself on that one. (Extension of time granted) Not many people in the community, none that I know of, with any expertise would agree with his position on that-"No, it doesn't and I don't believe it would save any lives." There might be some
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