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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 7 Hansard (10 July) . . Page.. 2439 ..

Amendment No 1 changes the total appropriation, as do amendments Nos 3 and 4, to reflect the increased appropriation for the liquor subsidy.

Amendments agreed to.

MR SPEAKER: The question now is that the proposed expenditures-total appropriated to departments; total appropriations; and clause 6, as amended,be agreed to.

MR BERRY (4.50): Mr Speaker, I will not speak for long. I have been over the issues of the budget in the past and my reasons for opposing it have not changed. I do not think that there is any need for me to repeat those arguments. I rise just to re-emphasise the entitlement in this place to oppose budgets for the good reasons that have been outlined in the course of the budget debate. We are now reconsidering the budget because of a grubby deal. By the government's own measure, if we did not pass the legislation for the supervised injecting room, lives would be lost. This move in the Assembly consummates a deal with the government which, by the government's own measure, brings about a negative outcome for the people out there who are suffering from the effects of drug addiction of one form or another, particularly heroin.

It strikes me that that is what this issue has to be remembered for, not much else. It was not a political crisis; it was nothing of the sort. It was a breach of the conventions, conventions which the Chief Minister pointed to herself a few years ago. Is it that these conventions apply only when the Chief Minister is in opposition? The people who have claimed that if we did not pass the legislation for the supervising injection room lives would be lost must be measuring themselves. If they are not, it demonstrates how callous and tough they are underneath it all and how calculating they are in their approach to these issues.

For a health minister to support a proposal which by his own measure will result in a loss of lives is beyond me. For a former health minister to take the same approach is beyond me. For a recent convert to the cause to take the same approach-I refer to Mr Smyth-is also beyond me. If your measure is correct, Mr Smyth, I cannot see how the wretched circumstances of people who are affected by drugs ought not to be given the same compassion and succour as would apply to anybody else in those circumstances.

The passage of this budget shall be remembered for those reasons. It should be remembered as a sell-out of enormous proportions. It is a sell-out that need not have happened, notwithstanding the government's argument. It is a sell-out which will be remembered by many in the community who have fought for this cause. It is also a sell-out on future change because it means that bipartisan agreements on these issues will be almost impossible to cobble together in future. I cannot think of a way that trust could be reintroduced into such a debate, especially when the clear intent of this change is quite in contrast with that which was originally intended, that is, to do some good for some people out there in the community who are in wretched circumstances.

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