Page 1048 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 1990
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the Royal Canberra Hospital, Mr Donohue indicated that, for his own reasons - and I will not go into them here - he would put his efforts elsewhere for the present time.
The medical profession, without exception, has agreed on a principal hospital, and I note that the Leader of the Opposition acknowledges that there is a good deal of common ground on this issue. What there is not common ground on is whether it is right and proper to try to whip up a few thousand extra votes in the north of Canberra on an emotive issue. I think that that is not proper, and I commend to the Opposition - - -
Mr Moore: That is democracy.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, that man is at it again.
MR SPEAKER: Please clam up, Mr Moore. Mr Collaery, please proceed.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, we are looking at a very full health system in the ACT, a holistic health system. It is the sort of system that was discussed in our own party rooms. It provides, among other things, a linkage with community health and a commitment to provide community service organisations with space on the site.
There was a suggestion by Mr Moore that the Royal Canberra Hospital site would be turned into something else. Perhaps he was implying an office block or something like that. How absurd. Our community options on that site are green and peaceful. Certainly, our public birthing central facilities provide needed options. Our blueprint for the ageing links other issues there to our overall approach in the health area. We have managed, through an enormous amount of hard work, to put this together.
There was one other suggestion made and that was that the Liberal Party always wanted to kill the residents' emotional connection to the Canberra Hospital site. Having watched, tested the evidence and put many public servants, many other advisers and the consultative processes to the test, I am convinced that Mr Humphries did not have preconceived ideas about use of the Acton peninsula. My impression is that he came to his present decisions as a result of the accumulated advice of all those parties that we ourselves are aware of.
Mr Moore: He spoke to the doctors.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Moore!
MR COLLAERY: He took the only decision possible in the circumstances. I am very happy to be standing here saying that we are going to move into the twenty-first century at Woden with a technologically advanced hospital. We are going to see the Acton Peninsula site preserved. It will be preserved and nationally protected, consistent with the
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