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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2604 ..

MR MOORE: The society could not possibly think that it had been ignored. I briefed it about the sites right from the word go, Mr Stanhope, just as I provided a briefing for you on those sites. Not only that, when I provided the briefing we did not have the Yarralumla site on it. The Hospice and Palliative Care Society suggested the Yarralumla site and I added it to the group of sites.

Mr Berry: You did not speak to them like that, did you?

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, can you shut up the cackling geese, the one that cannot remember?

Mr Corbell: "Goose"; it is singular.

MR MOORE: It is a gaggle of geese. Mr Speaker, to suggest that they have been ignored is simply nonsense. If they had been ignored, the Yarralumla site never would have been assessed. That having been the case, when the Hospice and Palliative Care Society came to me and said - - -

Mr Berry: You are cracking up. Settle down, mate.

MR MOORE: The reason I find it rather frustrating that Mr Stanhope should say that is that I have put out press release after press release pointing to the errors that Mr Stanhope makes in the statements that he makes publicly and it is those sorts of errors that he ignores in implying that I have ignored the Hospice and Palliative Care Society. I do not like it, Mr Stanhope, because I have met with them quite a number of times and have responded positively to their requests on a number of occasions.

The first occasion was when I added the Yarralumla site at their request and made sure that it was properly assessed. The second occasion was when I met with them in their capacity as part of the Hospice and Palliative Care Partnership Team. The third time was when they actually came into my office to talk about the issue of the assessment when I provided them with a copy of the assessment. That is not ignoring somebody. They said, "If we do not have the Yarralumla site, will you name some other sites?". I said, "Yes, I will", because I was being responsive.

I sat down with Mr Smyth and somebody from the planning authority and somebody from the Department of Health to attempt to assess from the Territory Plan other possible sites with a central location. Those sites that we chose were consistent with the Territory Plan because it seemed to me that, if we were to have an opportunity to complete a hospice on a suitable site within the timeframes, we ought to be choosing a site on the Territory Plan, a plan agreed to by the Assembly, that is consistent with having a hospice.

That is what we ought to be doing and that is how we ought to be delivering in the attempts we make to implement community facilities. That is what I have been trying to do. Mr Stanhope, contrary to the notion implied in your question that I have not consulted, I have consulted very widely. But I have not consulted, listened and said, "No, I am ignoring you". I have consulted, listened, modified what I was doing and responded very positively to their requests.

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