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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 10 Hansard (25 September) . . Page.. 3756 ..


MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

in all schools really do need to be aware of it because it has certainly greatly concerned my constituent and some other parents.

For obvious reasons, because this is going into Hansard, I have not read out the details of the website that came up, which was quite disgusting, and I will not. However, I want to raise this particularly worrying thing and I will certainly be chasing up the minister to ensure that that sort of situation does not happen again. I think we have been pretty lucky. It is the first time I recall hearing something like that, but I think schools should be particularly vigilant.

I also mention and congratulate a team in my electorate who took a while to get a premiership-about four or five goes-but they have gained back-to-back premierships, and that, of course, is the Belconnen Magpies, who have won their second first-grade premiership by one goal. That was a truly great result, so my congratulations to all players in the team. It is good to see a Belconnen team do well, and especially good to see that particular team win its second premiership. May they win a third, next year.

Chamber-discussion

Chief Minister

Minister for Health

Chamber-business

MRS DUNNE (6.07): I just wanted to rise, Mr Speaker, to make some comments on the interesting little session that we have just had. It was session not without its entertainments. I do not want to reflect on a ruling, Mr Speaker, but I was struck by your advice to Ms Tucker that, if she was struggling to be heard over the scrum of government members, she could assist all of us by moving a little bit to her left. Some of us would not have thought it possible for Ms Tucker to move any further to the left.

Earlier today, I thought the Chief Minister had to be awarded the deadpan award for speaking at length with a straight face while referring to the effects of the January bushfires on the smoky mouse, while all around him were collapsed in paroxysms of laughter.

The sitting cannot go by without some mention of the uncharacteristic flash of humour that we saw from the Minister for Planning yesterday. I thought it was a flash of humour, but it may have been a death wish to call a point of order in the middle of a speech being made by the Speaker.

Then there were a few embarrassments, Mr Speaker. There was the dixer that was ruled out of order-I thank you for that-because it duplicated a question already placed on the notice paper. The previous day, the government had sent a runner down to my office to say that it could not answer that question. It could not amass, in 30 days, a statement of what was being done in the ACT to reduce the bushfire hazard for this year. Perhaps it was too busy preparing the dixers.

Then we had the ludicrous spectacle of the government calling for a division on a motion to divide an amendment, losing it, and then solemnly, not once, but three times, moving to delete paragraphs and replace them with identical paragraphs, just so the government could claim that its words, and not the opposition's, went forward. Mr Speaker, I think it


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