SITTING TO RATIFY DEAL

Battle lines are being drawn ahead of next week's special Assembly sitting
in which the Carnell Government will ratify its deal with two key Independents.

Labor and the Greens will oppose a move by the Government to amend the
heroin-injecting room legislation to defer the start-up date until after
the next election.

Health Minister Michael Moore is likely to hold the deciding vote and says
he will back the Government because he is bound by Cabinet solidarity.

This is a significant defeat for Mr Moore, who will be forced to support
the deal with the Independents despite his commitment to the injecting-room
trial.

The Government intends to change the legislation - so the trial will not
begin before January 1, 2002 - to honour its agreement with Independent
Paul Osborne.

The amendment will require Assembly support, and MLAs are divided over the
Government's solution to the Budget impasse.

Amid a heated public row yesterday, Opposition Leader Jon Stanhope said the
Health Minister was "desperately determined" to keep his job and "prepared
to pay any price".

Chief Minister Kate Carnell said Labor was to blame for the outcome because
it delivered power to the cross-bench by consistently voting against Budgets.

Government negotiations with Mr Osborne and Independent Dave Rugendyke
began after the Budget was rejected last Friday.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, and after the Budget was rejected, the
Government firmly refused to strike-out injecting-room funding.

The back-down was announced late on Monday, and came immediately after Mr
Stanhope made a public offer to guarantee passage of the Budget with the
injecting room intact.

Mrs Carnell said Mr Stanhope issued a media statement but never approached
her with a direct offer.

"He didn't say the Labor Party would support the Budget at any stage, and
still hasn't," she said.

Mr Stanhope maintained he made the offer - pending Caucus approval - in a
private meeting with Mrs Carnell on Monday morning. Mrs Carnell said no
offer was put on the table.

More detail emerged yesterday about weekend negotiations.

Mrs Carnell said deferring the trial was put up as a "potential solution"
at a party room meeting on Sunday night.

By the time Cabinet met on Monday the Government had in-principle agreement
with the Independents.

Mr Osborne said the Government had sought an assurance that he would not
move against Mr Moore over the Budget being rejected. He had said, "very
tempting but I'm not in the game of collecting scalps".

Greens Member Kerrie Tucker said Mrs Carnell "rushed into the deal" without
considering other options.

"She obviously wants to secure the support of Mr Rugendyke and Mr Osborne
more than she wants a supervised-injecting place," Ms Tucker said.

"The Chief Minister has not approached me, which I found surprising."

The Greens had not ruled out supporting the Budget in light of the crisis,
and Ms Tucker had approached Mr Moore to discuss ways around the impasse.

"I'm very concerned that there's this mad race [between the major parties]
to control the agenda," Ms Tucker said.