Page 1924 - Week 07 - Thursday, 20 August 1992
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Labor's unchanged priorities were to finish the hospital redevelopment, continue with better financial management and accountability, keep the Royal Canberra Hospital site for public health uses and establish a medical school with a focus on community medicine.
Madam Speaker, we have the opportunity here to do something very special with a site, even though many of us still mourn the loss of that hospital. Similarly, in her third ministerial statement upon attaining government after the election, in April 1992, the Chief Minister said that new public health facilities will be provided on Acton Peninsula. We look forward to this budget statement when, I am sure, we will learn what those public health facilities are going to be. No doubt we will get some clarification on those from the Minister at the appropriate time. He will be able to make it crystal clear for us in his normal way.
Mr Berry: Thank you for the acknowledgment.
MR MOORE: My pleasure. In response to Ms Szuty's question without notice on 13 May Mr Berry said, quite succinctly:
In July last year the Government decided in principle to locate a range of non-acute health services on Acton Peninsula. Those services included rehabilitation, convalescent and aged care services, relocation of the Queen Elizabeth II hospital for mums and babies and the hospice. ACT Health has been managing a planning process ... A draft report was prepared, outlining the requirements for each service proposed for location at Acton, and proposals for the Acton site are expected to be considered by the Government shortly. They are issues that will be coming up to Cabinet shortly and we will keep you posted on developments.
So, Madam Speaker, the people of Canberra no doubt feel that it is appropriate that we are kept posted on developments on the Acton Peninsula. The fears that people have for that site - it is quite appropriate that they should have fears, from their experience - should be put to rest.
Turning to the options presented in the feasibility study on the redevelopment project, option 1 came out in favour of using the Acton site for a nursing home and community health related purposes in response to a growing demand for these services. Option 2 also described as viable and worthy of further consideration the use of the Acton site for primary health care related purposes, maximising the benefits in terms of improved hospital services for the Canberra community. Option 6B suggested that it was viable for the provision of rehabilitation and aged care services for all residents in the ACT and the surrounding region. Costings for each of those were also provided. The decision has been made on those, Madam Speaker, and it is not difficult for us to calculate roughly what the costings are.
I come back to question time in this house. Mr De Domenico asked a question on 23 June. The response from Ms Follett was a little softer than the one Mr Berry had given to Ms Szuty some months earlier in which he was quite clear about the hospice and so forth. Maybe he felt that it was covered. Sometimes Mr Berry does not answer questions quite as succinctly as he answered that one from Ms Szuty. Ms Follett said:
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