STICKING TO THEIR BELIEFS

GOOD on the Independents Dave Rugendyke and Paul Osborne for sticking to
their principles and forcing the Government to delete the heroin injecting
room from the Budget! The $800,000 will be more effectively spent on drug
education. But what can one say about Labor's role in this affair? There
was a time when the Labor Party stood for important principles of fairness
and justice - things like universal free education and health care, a fair
working week and a living wage for the lower paid. Now, in the ACT it seems
the most uplifting principle the Labor Party could find was facilitating
drug addiction with a government-funded shooting gallery. How are the
mighty fallen! Surely this was a moral dilemma on which Labor MLAs should
have been free to vote according to their consciences. Ordering them to
line up like sheep on this issue was not even clever politics.

PETER TRICKETT
Fraser