Page 631 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 21 March 1990
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inform the Assembly whether you consider that an appropriate activity under the lease purpose clause there, specifically as it is in a residential area?
MR KAINE: Mr Speaker, I am not aware of the facility that Mr Moore refers to. I have no idea what it is. I would not have the faintest idea whether it is an appropriate purpose for a lease in that particular area. Since it appears to be something that has to do with medical and health services, it might have been more appropriate to address the question to Mr Humphries. I think that the best thing that I can suggest is that Mr Humphries or I or both take the question on notice, find out what Mr Moore is talking about and come back with an appropriate response.
Health Promotion Fund
MRS NOLAN: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Health, Education and the Arts in relation to the Health Promotion Fund. Perhaps we could show that, unlike the former Minister for Community Services and Health, I do understand administrative arrangements. Minister, what is the status of the Health Promotion Fund and when can the ACT community expect it to be fully operational?
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I thank Mrs Nolan for her question. I think it is very timely that we should have an opportunity to clear up some of the misapprehensions that have gone around about the Health Promotion Fund and the Government's plans for tobacco legislation. Some of that misinformation has come from the tobacco industry, as the Chief Minister has indicated already; some has come from those opposite.
I should remind the Assembly that the Health Promotion Fund was established in last year's budget and receives money from an increase in the tobacco licence fee which rose last year from 30 to 35 per cent.
Now, three percentage points of that increase are being transferred into the Health Promotion Fund. They have been transferred and they are being transferred on a continuing basis. It is estimated that $660,000 will be put into the fund in this financial year and up to $900,000 in a full year. The fund will be managed by an ACT Health Promotion Fund advisory committee which will provide advice to me, as Minister, on disbursements from the fund. The advisory committee will be appointed in the near future and will comprise representatives from the health, sports, arts and business sectors.
Let me assure Mrs Nolan, and incidentally Mr Berry, that the Health Promotion Fund is up and running. While we get the structures and mechanisms right we are not simply waiting for them. I want to underscore this fact because Mr Berry has publicly and quite irresponsibly cast doubt
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