Page 1000 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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this Government to pretend, first of all, that the place does not really exist; that those eight suburbs are somehow to be divided equally between Tuggeranong and Woden, and the Weston Creek community, that neighbourhood, somehow ceases to exist as an entity.
The Government's view is put in spite of the fact that at least one of its members actually lives there. I find it extraordinary. Action by the Government in relation to the Weston Creek area really stands alone. They have taken no such action in relation to any other area of the ACT. The people of Weston Creek quite rightly feel that they have been singled out by this Government for particularly harsh treatment. An examination of the services that they have lost under the Alliance Government bears out what they believe.
They have lost their primary school, the Holder Primary School, and the preschool. In that decision the views of the local community were not considered, and have still not been considered. It is still unclear what intentions the Government has in relation to the Holder school site. They do not know; chaos reigns. We understand that the Therapy Centre - Mr Humphries has again mentioned that issue - may be moving to the Weston Creek area, but the people of Weston Creek do not really know about that. We understand that the Independent Living Centre might be moving to Weston Creek, but nobody has heard about it.
Apart from the short-sightedness of the Government's actions, they have marked themselves out also for a particular tactic in regard to community activities. That tactic is to set one community's needs against another's. It was very evident in this Government's treatment on their school closures program that they intended to win their point of view by setting community groups against each other. Their setting of the legitimate needs of the Therapy Centre and the Independent Living Centre against the needs of people in the Weston Creek neighbourhood is another example of that tactic. It is a despicable tactic. It is a tactic used by a Government that knows that its decision making, its rationale, has no credibility whatsoever. I think it deserves to be condemned, and I know that the people of the Weston Creek area do condemn it.
Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, the closure of the Weston Creek Health Centre has outraged that community. Mr Humphries has only to visit the area to find that out for himself. He has told us that the service will continue to operate, but it is no thanks to him. The people in Weston Creek know full well that Mr Humphries would have got rid of all of the services, including the doctor and the dentist, from that health centre, if he had been able to. Only the fact that they had a lease saved them from being chucked out.
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