Page 3054 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 10 September 1991
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The reduction in size and redesign of the Diagnostic and Treatment Block ...
Changes to the main tower block. One full level of wards (60 beds) would not be required.
Changes to planning, and some works already carried out, relating to car parking at RCH South ...
That is now the Woden Valley Hospital. It would also mean the reduction of proposed development of Calvary. The report states:
Ten high dependency beds and ten obstetric beds only would now remain to be transferred. The 30 day procedure beds planned for Calvary would instead be developed at Acton.
Mr Deputy Speaker, it is quite clear from option 4 in the feasibility study that it was possible to carry on with the principal hospital program, as Mr Humphries had designed, and also to develop a medical/surgical hospital at the Royal Canberra Hospital site. The reality is that things had not gone too far.
As for the approach of the Labor Government with reference to Royal Canberra Hospital, they were dishonest in their representation of what was the reality of the circumstances. As this debate proceeds, the words of Wayne Berry and the Chief Minister, who has decided not to be here for this debate, will come back to pursue them. I hope that the Chief Minister does return so that she can hear her own words. I hope that her own words will sting her significantly over this particular decision.
My original MPI, Mr Deputy Speaker, was not "the contradictory and damaging nature of the Labor Government's handling of the hospital redevelopment program". Instead, I used the words "hypocritical" and "dishonest". The Speaker returned that to me, saying that those words were unparliamentary. I suggest, Mr Deputy Speaker and members, that as you listen to the words used by Mr Berry and Ms Follett in June 1990 you can judge for yourselves whether their approach has been dishonest and hypocritical. It is dishonest because they have tried to convince the Canberra community that the hospital redevelopment program had gone too far for them to be able to institute any changes, too far for them to be able to ensure that there would be a hospital of any type on the Acton Peninsula. The truth of the matter is that it had not gone too far. Even the costs had changed very, very little since the time that Rosemary Follett, on 6 June 1990, tabled a Bill to preserve the Royal Canberra Hospital - a very similar Bill, perchance, to the one that I intend to table tomorrow.
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