Page 990 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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One asks the question, "Why?". It is very difficult to come to an answer. There have been school closures and, of course, Holder High School and Holder Primary School have been mentioned in that respect. There have been preschool closures and the Holder Preschool is targeted for closure. But, most importantly, included in this attack on the assets of Weston Creek has been the closure of the Weston Creek Health Centre. It is also important to ensure for the public record that the Government's incompetence and bungling on this issue is featured.
What it has really meant, from the outset, is disruption of the Weston Creek Community Service. Mr Hudson agreed that the Weston Creek community had been harshly attacked when he recommended that the Government proposal to close Rivett Primary School be dropped. But why close the health centre? It seemed that there was no answer. Why would you want to close a health centre? After all, anybody who is informed on the delivery of community health services would know the value of a quality health centre and respect the value of those services in ensuring that our people do not find themselves in hospital as early as they might otherwise. Well, the answer is: So that they could close Lyons and North Curtin schools. The health centre was closed not because the services were not needed or were not used in the Weston Creek area, but so that this Government could close the Lyons and North Curtin schools.
It was just another decision of this Government made on simplistic economic grounds. That is what the school closures debate has shown; that these were simplistic economic grounds that did not even address the community's use of services or the need for services. It was merely a knee-jerk decision made on the run, and I will come to that in a little more detail later.
The Government had to find space after they found out that they could not move the students into South Curtin school until they had relocated the Therapy Centre. I have to say that on the day Mr Humphries did not even seem to know there was a Therapy Centre, because no plans had been made for its removal from the South Curtin school. Having had it pointed out to him that there was a significant group in the community that needed help and that their centre had to be saved, the Government responded with a knee-jerk decision to relocate the Therapy Centre in the Weston Creek Health Centre. But, most importantly, they forgot about the important services that that health centre provided to the people at Weston Creek. That illustrates the bungling nature of this Government when it does not even know about such important services as are provided by the Therapy Centre. If it had known, it would have been included in its school closure arrangements. But it had been forgotten.
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