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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (2 September) . . Page.. 2807 ..

MR WOOD: My question is to Mr Moore, Minister for Health. Minister, you attended a joint public meeting of the Manuka and Burleigh Griffin LAPACs last night about the hospice relocation.

Mr Moore: The night before.

MR WOOD: Do you accept their view, as detailed in the media release today, that an appropriate planning process would be to take more time by undertaking an adequate relocation assessment rather than rushing an ad hoc process that puts at risk the possibility of finding a new site with the amenity a facility of excellence deserves? Secondly, will you add to whatever process you have the new sites suggested by the LAPACs, including Weston Park, Stirling Park and Grevillea Park?

MR MOORE: The answer to the last part of the question is no. We will look at some sites. I think it is really important to give a sense of what happened at that meeting. Mr Speaker, you were there and you know what happened. Not surprisingly, it was somewhat different in tone from the press release that Mr Wood has. Many people who spoke there said, "In Griffith we would welcome a hospice". Some of them said, "However, we think that a better place for a hospice than Griffith would be on Lake Burleigh Griffin". Of course, that will always be the approach when somebody feels that something is infringing on their area. They will always point to somewhere else as a better site.

Mr Smyth was there with me at that meeting, as was the Speaker. Unfortunately there were no members of the Labor Party or you would have got a much better sense - - -

Mr Stanhope: No, we trust the community. We trust the two LAPACs, which you obviously do not. We would not have stood up here and said that they could not reflect the meeting.

MR MOORE: Mr Stanhope says, "We trust the community. We do not need to trust anybody else". Mr Stanhope, perhaps in this case the community have a different view from that of the Hospice and Palliative Care Society. Which one are you going to trust? There is a problem about it. But let me tell you what happened. I took the meeting seriously. The Hospice and Palliative Care Society were there at the meeting. I spoke to them after the meeting and said, "This raises some extra issues for us. What if you come into my office tomorrow morning, Wednesday, and have a meeting with me?". They did that for about an hour

At that time they put the issue of possible sites around the Acton Peninsula. I raised with them the issue of the extra time it would take to assess any possible sites on the Acton Peninsula. Out of that meeting came two more possible sites, and of course at the next meeting we have there will be another three or four sites, and at the meeting we have after that there will be another five or six sites. When I discussed these - - -

Mr Wood: A reasonable planning process would have done all that.

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