Page 132 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 17 February 1993
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MR HUMPHRIES: Apparently you have to go to bed by 6 o'clock. There is the problem of access to transport, the problem of access to places such as shops and community facilities, which you are obviously not going to get on Acton Peninsula, and the problem, particularly for people suffering certain illnesses, of very close access to water. The fact of life is that some people in these facilities run the risk of wandering from the aged persons home, and water does present a risk in those circumstances.
Mr Berry: So do motor cars.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, so do motor cars. I listened to the people who came to see me about this matter, and if Mr Berry did the same thing he might take a slightly different view. Does he deny that he has had some disquiet about the idea of putting aged care facilities on the foreshores of the lake? He does not, so I think we can assume from that that he has had that view expressed to him.
Mr Kaine: Nobody can get at him on the fifth floor to talk to him. They have a security guard up there to keep them out.
MR HUMPHRIES: Perhaps the Council on the Ageing might have held up a sign outside his office so that he could read it. They certainly made that view known to me, and we on this side of the chamber are very accessible to those sorts of comments and views. I think it is quite clear that Acton Peninsula is not the right place for aged care facilities - at least, not the general kinds of broad-ranging aged care facilities which, for example, are represented at the present time by Jindalee.
There is a real question mark over some of these concepts and there is a need for us to accept finally that the Royal Canberra Hospital at Acton has closed. Neither a Liberal government nor a Labor government is going to reverse that, opportunities though there might be to do so - and there were opportunities to do so in 1991. That being the case, we have to decide what is the appropriate use for that site.
I think at least some of the things listed in Mr Moore's motion are not appropriate. Let us get beyond the debate on what might have been and think about what should be. The citizens of Canberra might find that community health facilities are not best placed on a relatively inaccessible peninsula in the middle of a lake and should rather be put in places where they are accessible and close to the community that uses them. There is no residential accommodation to speak of for a couple of kilometres, at the very nearest, from that site. Nobody is going to be able to wander down to the local community health facility, if it is based on Acton Peninsula, except for a few academics close to the university.
Mr Kaine: There are not many of them there either.
MR HUMPHRIES: There are not too many of them these days, I am advised. The fact of life is that, if you were going to chose a site in Canberra for community health facilities, you would not really put them on a place like Acton Peninsula. Obviously, these comments fall on deaf ears. Labor has some hurts to mend. They offended a lot of people by continuing with the closure of the hospital when they promised not to do so, and obviously they are keen to expiate their guilt by sympathising strongly with a motion such as this from Mr Moore. The fact of life is that it does not make very sensible use of the community's valuable resources based on that site.
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