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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (7 May) . . Page.. 1673 ..

Budget

Heart Day

Tony Burke

MS MacDONALD: Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to raise a few matters. Firstly, I would like to extend my congratulations to the Treasurer on bringing down his second budget. I believe he has taken a balanced approach, while still looking after the needy in our community. I commend him for his budget. I know that there will be those who will knock the budget. I know he has said that budgets do not get any easier but I think he has also done an admirable job with his second budget.

Secondly, Mr Deputy Speaker, I wanted to put on record my thanks to those people who turned up to the red breakfast which I held for Heart Day last Friday. We raised around about $250, and thanks to everybody who came along and donned a red T-shirt for the photo. For those of you who could not stay for the photo, I appreciate the fact that you came along. I know that Minister Wood and Mr Pratt were there. I know that Mr Stefaniak is sorry that he could not make it on Friday, but I appreciate the sentiment. As heart disease is the biggest killer in this country we know that this was a worthy cause and I sincerely thank everybody for turning up.

The final thing that I wanted to raise was my great joy, slightly tinged with a bit of disappointment, that today my good friend, Tony Burke, has just given his inaugural speech in the New South Wales Legislative Council. Tony invited me to hear his inaugural speech but obviously I had to be here, so I rang him this morning and wished him the best of luck. He had that little edge of frantic in his voice, which I seem to recall from the day that I gave my first speech. But having heard Tony speak at many events, I am sure he would have done just fine.

I mentioned Tony in my own inaugural speech because Tony was one of the two people who signed me up to the Australian Labor Party, and for that I will forever be thankful and grateful to him. As I said, I picked his brains and the brains of another good friend of mine, Patrick Low, about the ins and outs of the Labor Party and what being bound to Labor Party platform would mean for me. I have to say several years on that I have no objections to being bound by Labor Party policy because, at the end of the day, I think it is an underlying good platform.

I also shared a lot of, I suppose, good times with Tony and was very privileged to see him and his wife Cathy wed. They now have three delightful young daughters-I have met one of them, so I cannot really say that the other two are delightful but I am sure that if they are anything like their parents they will be. I just wanted to put on record my congratulations to Tony Burke, and in doing so ensure that his name appears in two sets of Hansards around the country on the one day.

Papers, tabling

ANZAC Day

MR PRATT (5.07): Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to raise two issues. Firstly, during the presentation of papers yesterday, Ms Gallagher, the minister for education, presented five papers. She did not move that the Assembly take note of those papers

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