Page 3123 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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It was a very great mistake indeed, when our Commonwealth Government did not accept the initiative of the United States Government at the time that those stations were closed down. Then the years went by and the vandalism went on and it was too late. I do hope that we will do everything possible - and I thank the Government for the response to the report - to ensure that all visitors to Canberra in future, for centuries to come, will recognise that in those two places were events of very great significance to humankind.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
1989-90 Annual Report
Debate resumed from 6 August 1991, on motion by Mr Berry:
That the Assembly takes note of the paper.
MR HUMPHRIES (10.06): Mr Speaker, it is interesting to take this report and to read it. Like most reports we receive in this Assembly, it is relatively old by the time it reaches us. This report was tabled more than a year after the end of the financial year to which it relates. Nonetheless, it is a valuable document outlining the ACT's achievements in the area of health in the first full year of self-government, and I believe, Mr Speaker, that it will be an interesting document to those who wish to see what changes were emerging in the ACT in those early valuable and formative months of self-government.
It is a balanced document. Witness the fact, Mr Speaker, that, with two Ministers administering health in that period, there are two photographs of Mr Berry and three photographs of me in proportion to the fact that there was about two-fifths of - - -
Mrs Grassby: The same as you have a beard and he does not.
MR HUMPHRIES: He had a moustache at that stage, Mrs Grassby; it was very distinct.
Mrs Grassby: And he was more handsome than you.
MR HUMPHRIES: I will not comment on what turns you on, Mrs Grassby. I will leave that to others in this or other debates to comment upon. I am turned on, Mr Speaker, by the exciting things that were happening in health in that first 12 months. I see it as a period of enormous change and development in the provision of services in the area of health in this Territory. I believe that it is worthwhile reading this document and reflecting on how much was achieved in that period. We tend to think of the early stage of self-government as being a fairly disruptive period in one sense; but, clearly, positive and lasting things were being achieved in that time.
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