ACTION was becoming more efficient, the Minister for Urban Services, Terry Connolly, told the Legislative Assembly said yesterday.
In answer to Ellnor Grassby (Lab) he said that ACTION’s ratio of employees to vehicles was the second lowest in Australia, he said. Liberal members interjected: but how many vehicles have you got?
Mr Connolly said ACTION had exceeded it target in reducing its deficit, and its per head subsidy was $167 per head, less than Sydney and Melbourne. Its cost recovery would improve from 22.4 per cent last year to 24 per cent this year.
The Assembly spent 15 minutes yesterday debating the titles of presiding and deputy presiding members of Assembly committees. It agreed on the voices to a motion by Gary Humphries (Lib) that committees determine the title.
Suggestions abounded: God, Ayatollah, Kaiser, Your Loftiness, Excellency. Helen Szuty (Ind) was concerned that a presiding member might get the “”gender-neutral” title “”chairperson” but the deputy of the same committee might get “”deputy chairman”.
The Assembly then moved on to debate about dementia care.
ACT schools were giving less emphasis on elite sport and interstate competition and more emphasis on broad skills development, the Minister for Education, Bill Wood, said in answer to Ms Szuty.
Ms Szuty said he had given Mr Wood notice of the question earlier in the day.
Trevor Kaine (interjecting): So it’s not a question without notice.
Michael Moore (Ind) said that he, too, had given notice of his question to Mr Wood’s office. He asked about noise from a Manuka night club.
Mr Wood acknowledged the problem. He said some people were also concerned about dogs that bark in the night, but had yet to find a solution.
The ACT Government was condemned for not immediately setting up a cancer registry in the ACT, as had been done in every other state and territory.
The Minister for Health, Wayne Berry, said it would come in time, but that it had to be done properly. Mrs Grassby said there were problems with privacy.
The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tony de Domenico, who said he had had cancer, said these things had all been worked out elsewhere and it would only take $50,000 to set up a register here that would record incidents of cancer, not just the deaths as reported by the Bureau of Statistics.
He and his leader, Kate Carnell, pointed out that data was essential to prevention and providing the best treatment. Cancer deaths would increase by 50 per cent in the next decade with the aging population.
Mrs Grassby said the ACT registered cases with NSW. Ms Carnell said reportage was not mandatory to figures were incomplete.
No-one pointed out that the essential reason for an ACT register is that the ACT is a statistical region for the gathering of hundreds of other categories of statistics and that if there were an separate ACT register for cancer comparisons could be made with the other statistics. Such correlations are the grist of the epidemiologist’s mill, and could help in working out risk factors and more effective treatments _ the ACT being even more useful because it has features other states and territories do not.
The shadow attorney-general, Gary Humphries, called for police move-on powers to be made permanent because police had not misused them over the past four years.
The powers expire on September 6 after a two-year extension to the original two-year sunset clause expires.
They give police power to order people to move on or face a $200 fine. Mr Humphries said they had been used on 199 occasions against 2620 people _ an average of 13 people per instance. This was evidence they were not used to pick on individuals.
There had been only 27 arrests for non-compliance. In 99 per cent of cases people complied resulting in prevention of violence to people and property and the avoidance of costly arrest procedures.
Civil liberties fears had not materialised. Police had used the powers responsibly. The police had fulfilled their side of the pact, the Assembly should fulfil its by making the power permanent.