Page 995 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 1991
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MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Jensen): Order, Mr Wood! I think Mr Humphries - - -
Mr Wood: You think what?
MR TEMPORARY DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am just about to suggest that Mr Berry was heard in relative silence and I request that you do the same for the Minister.
MR HUMPHRIES: Thank you, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker. I will not touch on that raw spot any more during this speech. I want to correct a few assertions made by Mr Berry which are, as usual, inaccurate. Mr Berry alleged that the ACT Government had closed the Weston Creek Health Centre. That is simply not the case. Mr Berry obviously would like this particular scenario to conform to his predetermined concept of the ACT Government charging in, closing health facilities and selling them off.
What, unfortunately, he has failed to bear in mind is that, first of all, there are at least two health services, and more on the way, operating out of the Weston Creek Health Centre now and into the future, and they are, particularly, the doctor and the dentist who are located on that site. What is more, services will continue to be provided to people in the Weston Creek area on much the same basis as they are provided now.
Mr Berry conveniently overlooks that fact and also overlooks the fact that the Government will continue to provide services on the basis that the Weston Creek Health Centre will remain an asset for the benefit of the people of Weston Creek, and, indeed, for the whole of Canberra.
If we were going to dispose of the Weston Creek Health Centre, sell it off, give it away to somebody else, privatise it, or anything of that kind, you could understand some of the comments that have been made; but we are not doing that. We are merely, in effect, reorganising the services available from the Weston Creek Health Centre. Where is the crime in that? I do not think there is any crime in that. I think we are responding to the changing needs of Canberra in a way in which those knee jerkers opposite cannot respond because they do not accept that any change can be validated by this Government. I think, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, that we should all be aware of what those changing needs are and be prepared to respond to them. We as a Government certainly are.
Mr Berry also alleged that the Hudson report had found that the needs of the Weston Creek community had been attacked by the Government's original decision. That, of course, is Mr Berry's own emotional gloss on the original report by Mr Hudson. Nothing of the sort was said in his report, although he did suggest at the end of that report that if certain circumstances were satisfied there ought not be a closure of the Rivett Primary School.
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