Page 286 - Week 01 - Thursday, 24 February 1994
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The other thing that he quotes is that the hospice does not need to be located near a hospital. If he had read a bit further he might have found that it might have been desirable for it to be so co-located. Of course, it does not need to be, but is it desirable? If he had read his advice a little further he may well have found that that was in there. The advice to me from the ACT Hospice Society was that it was desirable that it be located adjacent to an operating hospital, and I do not believe that the ACT Hospice Society has changed its mind. He picks up the words that he wants to hear. It does not need to be, therefore in his view it will not be. It is a long jump. He talked about home palliative care and all that. Of course we need palliative care at home. Not everybody wants to go into a hospice. Some people have the capacity to remain at home; they have people to take care of them and to look after them with a little bit of assistance under the palliative care program. Unfortunately, that is not the case for everybody, so we have to have a hospice for those who are not fortunate enough to be able to have those happy circumstances.
Mr Moore says that the hospice is being used as a political football. Who started this football game? Who was it who went down to the Acton Peninsula, put a bit of chalk around a bit of ground down there and said, "That is where the hospice is going to be. Do not tell me about whether it could be somewhere else; do not tell me about where it might be somewhere else; do not tell me whether it is desirable that it be somewhere else. I have $3m in my hip-pocket. I am going to build it here. Let us not have any further debate."? This is the caring Minister for Health! He drew the lines and if he had spent the money the hospice could have been there nearly two years ago. This is the caring Minister who is concerned about these people who need a hospice! It is absolute humbug, Mr Temporary Deputy Speaker, and this is the man that Mr Moore should have directed his attention to when he was talking about using this as a political football.
I say, "Let us have the hospice. Let us have it now and let us have it in a place where we are not going to have to spend another $3m in five years' time to build another one". Mr Berry is going to spend a good slice of his $3m to upgrade that old building down on Acton Peninsula, and the NCPA has already told him that in five years' time he is going to have to move it somewhere else. He is going to spend the bulk of the money now and in five years' time the government of the day - not him, because he will not be there - is going to have to produce another $3m, or perhaps by that stage $5m, to build another hospice somewhere else. How stupid can you get?
This is the paradox within this hospital system and health system that is in financial crisis. Every day of the week somebody comes along and says that we have closed more beds, and every time we do the waiting list goes up. These numbers, these people who do not matter, go up, and he is spending $280m this year to prop up that system that is going downhill every time you turn around. Why does he not do something positive instead of stonewalling, instead of blocking? It absolutely confounds me that he is so insistent, so adamant, so arrogant that he is going to fight every inch of the way to everybody else's death over where the hospice is going to go.
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