Page 2907 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 October 1992
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MR BERRY: The short answer is no, but there needs to be some detail added to that because the Business Council represents that sector of business which forms its constituency. Labor made a very clear commitment to the establishment of a hospice in the lead-up to the last election and we intend to stick by it. We said that we would retain the Acton Peninsula site as a public health facility, with rehabilitation and aged care services, a convalescent facility, the Queen Elizabeth II home for mothers and babies, and a hospice. We also said that we would establish a chair of community medicine and a chair of rehabilitation and aged care as part of a centre of excellence in aged care on the Acton Peninsula. There are some detailed negotiations going on with Sydney University about the establishment of a clinical medical school in the ACT and I am hopeful that that issue can be resolved shortly.
It has been very clear for a long time what Labor's position is in relation to the Acton Peninsula; so I think it is nonsense for the Business Council to say that there has not been adequate time for consultation. I recall recently being at a meeting which was arranged by the Business Council, and the message that came through to me very clearly was that, unless we agreed with the Business Council, then the position would be that there was inadequate consultation or that there had been no consultation. Unfortunately, as part of any consultative process, there is a chance that people will disagree; but at the end of the day one has to make a judgment about what is appropriate in the light of the political emphasis one might like to put on a particular policy. We have decided on the provision of these particular facilities on that site. I am sorry that the Business Council does not agree with us, but I am sure that the majority of the community do. Those who elected us expect us to deliver on our promises and we intend to work towards that.
Cook and Lyons Primary Schools
MR HUMPHRIES: Madam Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister has told the Assembly this afternoon that she believed, as of 21 June 1991, that the total cost of reopening the Cook and Lyons primary schools was in the order of half a million dollars. Is it not the case that less than seven days before the date on which she was asked that question she had received a letter from her colleague the Minister for Education advising her that the cost of reopening the Cook and Lyons primary schools was, in fact, more in the order of $888,000?
MS FOLLETT: Madam Speaker, I do not have such a letter before me, but I have no reason to doubt that what Mr Humphries says could be so. The fact is, Madam Speaker, that I do not accept - and I do not know of any Treasurer who does - the opening bid by a Minister on any new policy proposal as a fait accompli. What kind of idiocy would that be? All such proposals are scrutinised closely, not just by me but by Treasury as well, and so they ought to be. The Canberra community, I believe, has the right to expect the Government to deliver on its promises in the most economical and cost-effective way possible, and that involves scrutiny of bids. Of course it does.
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