Page 3965 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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One can sympathise with the Chief Minister to an extent. She certainly has done a lot of twists and turns in relation to this. Indeed, the editorial comment in the Canberra Weekly of the week of 27 October to 2 November probably sums it up very well when it states:
The continuing furore over Acton Peninsula would no doubt have some members of the ACT Government wishing they could cut it off and sink it in the middle of the lake. The issue has been a confusing one for all involved.
At various times, Chief Minister Rosemary Follett has made different suggestions about the use of the area. Just before the 1992 elections, she said she was committed to the peninsula being the home of a range of public-health facilities, including rehabilitation and aged-care services, a convalescent facility, the Queen Elizabeth II Nursing Home, a hospice and a Chair of Community Medicine from the Clinical School.
In June of the same year, in a letter to Prime Minister Paul Keating, Ms Follett suggested that eventually the area could be developed with medium- and high-density housing, and commercial and tourism facilities. More recently, she has recognised that the National Capital Planning Authority had a right to decide the use of the area.
The only one of these points which has come to anything is the $3.3 million hospice, which is presently under construction. Even so, the Opposition has rightly pointed out that the hospice only has a three-year lease.
But whether she likes it or not, the decision about Acton Peninsula has been removed from Rosemary Follett's list of things to do, courtesy of Paul Keating's announcement about the location of the Aboriginal gallery on the peninsula. It is a shame it had to come to that.
It is a shame that the Federal Government could apparently ride roughshod over the ACT Government. As early as 1992, the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Laurie Brereton, made a statement indicating that the Federal Government had no say on the use of Acton Peninsula or Royal Canberra Hospital. It is also a shame that the ACT Government would allow this to happen. Certainly, arguments between different tiers of government are often tedious, but generally worth fighting for.
Subsequent talks of compensation are surely only meant to soften the blow.
And even if it happens, it does not go to the heart of the matter. The people of Canberra have lost the right to control the future of a piece of land which lies at the historic, social and geographic heart of the city. It is a piece of land which arguably means more to Canberrans than to other Australians. Its loss is the greatest shame of all.
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