Page 2761 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 13 August 2019
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MS ORR: Chief Minister, can you also guarantee that essential public services will stay in public hands?
MR BARR: Yes.
MS CODY: Chief Minister, what is the biggest risk to the government not being able to deliver high quality services as our city grows?
MR BARR: The biggest risk is the wrong priorities. It is driving down revenue at the expense of public services. It is pursuing an ideological obsession with reducing the size of government. We know that conservative parties around this nation have form in saying one thing before elections about public services and then cutting those very services when they get into office.
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MR BARR: Few of us would forget the promises of no cuts to health, education, the ABC and the SBS that were made by the Abbott government before the election. Then they went in and started cutting all those services. So we know they have form. We are seeing it now at a state and territory level in South Australia—
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, enough!
MR BARR: We are seeing it at a state level in South Australia where a series of promises was made prior to that state’s election, that no public services would be cut. Then in they go, privatising public transport services, selling off TAFE campuses, that sort of thing—
Opposition members interjecting—
MR BARR: You know you have hit a raw nerve, Madam Speaker, when they are all interjecting. You certainly know when you hit a raw nerve. We guarantee to continue the provision and growth of public services in this territory. Those opposite have a narrow, conservative, ideological agenda to drive government out of people’s lives, to make it smaller and less effective. That is the agenda of those opposite and we stand against that.
Mental health—disability access
MS LAWDER: My question is to the Minister for Mental Health and is in relation to follow-up of a letter that was sent to you on 9 July this year about psychology services for deaf and deafblind mental health patients in the ACT. Minister, do deaf and deafblind mental health patients in the ACT have access to psychology services from providers with subspecialist expertise in caring for that cohort of patients specifically? If not, why not? If yes, how many providers are there?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video