Page 2672 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 1991
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fact is that, supported by Mr Justice Rae Else-Mitchell's report on the assets and liabilities of the Territory, we were sold a run-down Canberra Hospital. It was so run down that, whatever the decision taken, we may well have found ourselves still facing the prospect of closing one of the hospitals in the Territory. It is simply not fair to blame those members of this Assembly who, on the best available advice, took decisions affecting the Acton Peninsula.
The blame I now lay on the Labor Government is that they gave every indication that they would support the Residents Rally's call for a hospice, convalescent care facilities, a birthing centre, et cetera. These calls were not only from the Rally but also from within the Alliance. I particularly remember Ms Maher pressing from day one for a birthing centre in the Territory and getting general support in the Alliance party room. Labor have decreased the net benefit to the community. They have stripped away the hospice and reinstalled a garbage dump. They have got rid of the convalescent care centre, which was to have a veterans input and was so important in providing a tranquil setting for the care of our veterans. They have thumbed their noses at a group - - -
Mr Berry: Why don't you read the speech?
MR COLLAERY: Mr Berry interjects. The fact is that that is all sophistry now; it is polemics. The moneys are not going to be put forward this year for a hospice. It is indeterminate, and next year it will be left to the government of the day to find the money and accelerate it, at extra cost. That is the hypocrisy of this Labor Minister's decision making. The hospice must be restored immediately. The convalescent care facilities can be funded and should be funded on the Acton Peninsula. We want some action, not words.
MR MOORE (4.33): It is with great sadness that I rise to comment on the Labor Government's turnabout on their promise to keep the Royal Canberra Hospital open. Clearly, members have not had time to digest the feasibility study in any great detail at this stage. However, in looking at the options in the executive summary in part one of the feasibility study, I note that option 5, the community hospital, would mean a recurrent cost of $189.47m and a capital cost of $181.24m - in other words, an increase over the current system of some $16.9m to $17m in recurrent costs and some $27m in capital expenditure.
Because we have only just got this statement I have not had time to put my hands on the document that was the basis of the decision by the Labor Government in 1989 for retaining Royal Canberra Hospital. As my memory serves me, those figures are not so different. In 1989 an extra $17m recurrent expenditure and some $30m capital expenditure was required. Those are figures that I shall check and, if I am mistaken, I shall come back to the Assembly and clarify
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