Page 238 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012
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(4) calls on the ACT Government to develop an ACT Preventative Health Strategy.”.
MADAM SPEAKER: The question is that Mr Smyth’s amendment to Ms Porter’s motion be agreed to.
MR SMYTH: Thank you, Madam Speaker. The amendment makes it abundantly clear that the Assembly wants these things. Of course, the government will vote for this because they believe in preventative health task forces and they believe in preventative health strategies, because the Chief Minister told us she already has them. So it will be impossible for the government to oppose these amendments and it will be impossible for the Greens minister, in whatever position he is performing today, to oppose this, because apparently he is in favour of it as well. So let us see whether people actually live up to what they say.
So what paragraph (3) does is to call on the ACT government to establish an ACT preventative health task force, not an active living task force. I am aware of the active living program that the Heart Foundation runs. I searched for “active living task force”. I could not find it either on either of the websites; so this must be a very special task force because nobody is allowed to know who is on it and nobody is allowed—
Ms Gallagher: Don’t patronise.
MR SMYTH: “Don’t patronise,” says the Chief Minister. You were patronising when you told us that you had a preventative health strategy, and you do not have one. You told us.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, standing order 42.
MR SMYTH: Sorry, Madam Speaker. Through you, Madam Speaker, the Chief Minister was patronising to the entire place. Indeed, she was patronising to the entire ACT community when she thought that because she said it, the people of the ACT would believe that she had a preventative health strategy and that she had a task force. She has neither.
So let us make it abundantly clear. We can fix this today. We can add paragraphs (3) and (4) to Ms Porter’s motion and the government can then get on with the job. Apparently, if you believe what the Chief Minister said, this work has been under development. Having already said that she had it, that the task force is in place, she went on to say:
… as I explained to you during the election campaign. It is another one where you came and copied the work that was already underway in the health area.
She said that the work has been under development. So the strategy does not exist and the task force does not exist. So what these two additions, paragraph (3) and paragraph (4) do, is establish beyond doubt that the ACT Assembly, all of us, representing the people of the ACT, would like to see a preventative health task force. Prevention is better than cure. A number of us have said that here this afternoon.
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