Page 3029 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 5 December 1989
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senior legal person opposite knows to which piece of law I am referring, and we have discussed it. That was, of course, the Bennett decision in New South Wales, if you do not recall, Mr Collaery.
I am confident that the system proposed by the Labor Government will be the strongest and most effective system for managing our hospitals. To address the wide range of competing needs in the community, I have proposed a community services and health council to bring people from the various peak agencies under one umbrella. They, in turn, will provide me with coordinated, top-level policy advice.
To complement the community services and health council I have created a new community services advisory committee which retains much of the role of the existing community services council. This committee will focus on achieving the coordination of government and non-government community services and will also oversight the operation of the grants program to the non-government sector - not, as Mr Humphries said, forming a committee which would oversight the hospitals board. That was another fib, Mr Humphries.
Mr Humphries: We will never know now, will we?
MR BERRY: And that is going to be demolished, too, by the sound of it. Community consultation is on the way out.
Together, I believe that these three bodies will be the key in shaping some of the future directions for health and community services in the ACT, though Mr Humphries said, and I guess he said it in the knowledge that he has the numbers, that he is going to wipe all these things out. That is not unexpected from the Liberal coalition.
In addition to the new policy initiatives announced under the budget, a number of significant achievements have been made in my department in the past six months. Some of these include the establishment of a youth health clinic in Narrabundah to provide confidential counselling and general health education; an agreement signed with the Trades and Labour Council to regulate occupational health and safety in the department; funding, under the Medicare incentives program, for post-acute and palliative care; one-off funding under the national better health program for health needs of the aged, a cancer program targeting the male role in the spread of cervical cancer, and for the neighbours project, to assist in establishing a drop-in centre for a group of single mothers.
They also include the opening of a health risk management clinic; launching of Midcall, the obstetrics early discharge program; finalisation of the new supported accommodation assistance program; joint establishment with the Commonwealth of the disability services committee; identification of job opportunities for placement of people with intellectual disabilities; opening of the Burrangiri
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