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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 14 Hansard (10 December) . . Page.. 5119 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Department of Community Services would incorporate everything that was likely to emerge from the reviews.

Two months later I presented a petition from people associated with organisations based in the existing centre which called on the government to reconsider emerging plans. Those organisations argued that the plans were not adequate for existing tenants, that they would not meet any additional identified need, and that they would not necessarily be accessible to people who used the centre. At the time Mr Humphries reluctantly conceded that there was pressure for more space to be made available. He advised the Assembly that he would examine the issue, although clearly without any strategic intent.

Nonetheless, in August 2000 the Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, in answer to a question that was asked by Mr Rugendyke, said that the process had been slow because, as it involved an extraordinarily important part of Civic, the government wanted to get it right. Unfortunately, getting it right throughout this process has proved to be more about ad hoc and convenient decisions than about assessing the real level of need. When it became necessary for the government to find a site for a supervised injecting room the Junction Youth Health Service was given the flick from the former Queen Elizabeth II Hospital site. It was going to be shoehorned into the youth centre building whether or not it fitted in or whether or not it was a compatible user.

The supervised injecting place has not yet been established and the Junction Youth Health Service remains in situ, so the tension regarding pressure and possible incompatibility is still in the air. I am recorded in Hansard in September 2000 as stating that the community facility planning and analysis being conducted by PALM had still not been fed into the consultation process. I also said that the longer the problem remained unaddressed the more intractable it would become when the development finally proceeded.

In February 2001 Mr Quinlan, as a member of the opposition, recommended that the government increase the resources allocated to PALM so that planning for community facilities could be accelerated and occur in the right order. In May Daniel Stubbs from ACTCOSS advised members at the estimates committee hearings that he was concerned, as were all members of the community, that the replacement Griffin Centre would not accommodate or meet the needs of the community in and around Civic.

The 2001-02 budget included an allocation to enable the purchase of 19 per cent additional floor space but it did not allow for a greater footprint. Mr Moore appeared to be unaware of the needs and facility analysis that has been conducted by PALM over the past few years. Mr Moore, when questioned during the estimates committee process, admitted that no strategic view of need had informed that decision. He said it was simply a reflection of half a million dollars worth of priority, or perhaps a response to political and community pressure.

By June 2002 we all became aware that the Youth Coalition of the ACT and ACT Shelter, two peak organisations in the community sector, were likely to lose their accommodation when the new centre was constructed. I asked Mr Corbell, the minister responsible for that project, to consider withdrawing the proposed variation to the territory plan and to renegotiate a more acceptable outcome. His advice was that the

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