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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 8 Hansard (25 August) . . Page.. 2447 ..

Mr Stanhope: We occupied it.

MR SMYTH: You have got it wrong. Your motion is inaccurate and you should withdraw it. Mr Berry continues to rewrite history. He ignores the truth of the documents referred to by the Chief Minister. It is your mess. As always, we are left to clean up. Michael Moore has done a remarkable job with the progress of the hospice in such a short time. Fronted by the reality that the Federals would not allow the hospice to stay where it is because of the negotiations of the Labor Party, we have moved quickly and expeditiously to meet the needs of the Hospice and Palliative Care Society.

Their foremost requirement was that the hospice be near the water. With that in mind, we looked at sites. They then raised the issue of Yarralumla, and we looked at that site as well. Now the issue has shifted. Because of community consultation, because we listen to them, because we talk with them constantly, we are aware that now the issue for them is that the hospice be central. With that in mind, Michael Moore asked me to organise a meeting yesterday. We got a Planning representative up, we had people from his department up, and within an hour they were off in the Tarago looking at different sites. We found two very nice sites that met the changed criteria from the Hospice and Palliative Care Society.

We have been working well with them. Why? Because it is important. We want to build a facility that should have been built back in 1994 on a site that could have been identified in 1994, except that the then Health Minister was more interested in playing politics. Former Liberal MLA Trevor Kaine said on 24 February 1994:

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 the government of the day - not him, because he will not be there -

you were very wise, Mr Kaine -

is going to have to produce another $3m, or perhaps by that stage $5m -

good call, Mr Kaine -

to build another hospice somewhere else. How stupid can you get?

Mr Kaine was right then; he is right now. This motion should be withdrawn. It is an absolute travesty of justice.

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