Page 2429 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 6 August 1991
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MR BERRY: Mr Stevenson needs to make sure that when he spreads the word in his electorate he spreads the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him; there should be no half-truths or misinformation. What he needs to tell the community as he moves around is that Labor promised in 1989 to keep the Royal Canberra Hospital open but not in the state that it had always been in - with a reduced bed capacity and a very different hospital from that which existed before Labor's plan. That is one point.
The second point that Mr Stevenson needs to make sure he tells those people with whom he communicates is that Labor's policy, which has been enunciated on many occasions, is that there ought to be or that there will be, under a Labor Government, health facilities on the Acton Peninsula.
Mr Stevenson: That is a vast difference between a hospital.
MR BERRY: Mr Stevenson interjects and says, "That is a vast difference between a hospital". He ought not argue that Labor promised to keep the Royal Canberra Hospital as it was.
Mr Stevenson: I did not say that, for a start. Why don't you get your facts straight?
MR BERRY: We will just make sure that you have all of the facts straight and then you can spread them.
Now, going to the body of my statement, Mr Speaker, immediately on returning to government I commissioned a study to look at options for possible hospital facilities on the Acton Peninsula. We did that because we were concerned about the level of damage which had been done to our hospital system in the 18 months of the Alliance Government. We had to make sure, Mr Speaker, of what was available for salvage from the hospital system which the Alliance Government had left behind.
I also did this because of the concern we had as a Government about the anxiety and the confusion within the community caused by the Alliance Government's hospital redevelopment program. We were aware, for instance, that some 46,000 citizens had signed a petition seeking to retain the Royal Canberra Hospital at Acton. That has been swelled today by another couple of thousand signatures. We were also concerned about the accuracy and validity of some of the costings used by the Alliance Government to justify their chosen course of action.
The study was conducted by a project team consisting of ACT Government officers and consultants, Richard Glenn and Associates. The feasibility study was oversighted by a steering committee of independent experts who had no previous association with the project. The steering committee was chaired by Dr John Campbell, the Chief
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