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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Wednesday, 11 February 2004) . . Page.. 220 ..

situation: making a decision when you are presented with the advice by your departmental officials that you can and should use the confidentiality clause.

I was notified about a week and a half after the people received those letters. Shortly after that I was at my shopping centre stall, as is my wont, at the Chisholm shops. During this time I was approached by four people who live in the area and have concerns about the proposed redevelopment or refurbishment—however you wish to refer to it—of Karralika. I undertook to follow it up and find out what I could. After that I received numerous letters and emails and undertook to find out as much information as I could.

As such, I organised for a briefing from both Health and the planning department. That took place Wednesday of last week. At that meeting I did not give a commitment one way or the other as to my thoughts—whether it should go ahead—because I was still learning about the process. I had not been to Karralika. I was aware of its existence but, apart from that, I did not know the full details of how the operation ran, what it involved.

At the meeting on Wednesday of last week I requested to visit the site at Fadden. While I can get a general idea looking at many planning maps—I do not think I am so silly that I cannot work out east and west; although I understand there were wrong alignments in the plans—I cannot fully comprehend what is proposed by the number of buildings, the number of levels, et cetera. I still do not have a good idea, from looking at a plan, as to how a hill forms; I was never very good at geography and topographical maps, et cetera. So for the spatial type ideas, the people from ADFACT, who run the Karralika service, said they would be happy to show me around the site. Last Thursday morning I visited the Karralika site at Fadden. I also went and had a look at the Isabella Plains site.

I do not think anybody in the community—if they have seen the outside and the inside of Karralika—will disagree with me when I say that it is a rundown facility. But I was incredibly impressed with the services that Karralika provides to those people who have made the choice to get off whatever their drug of addiction is—alcohol, heroin or some other form of addiction. They have made the choice and have decided to rebuild their lives.

Karralika is a very precious facility in that it provides the ability for people to have a future. That is not something you can say about many services in our community or in any other community around this country. After my visit to Karralika—both sites—I had conversations with a few people and I replied to a few of the emails. I am still working on replying to emails and letters. I have not had the desire to send out a form letter to any person. I have wanted to reply to them individually and to their individual concerns. That is what I have attempted to do. Personally, I could do no less than reply individually to the letters and emails of those people already feeling upset by the belief that they have not been consulted in the process. It would be an insult to them to try to give them a one size fits all response.

Last Thursday I organised to visit the house of a person who had approached me at the shopping centre stall at Chisholm shops to see exactly what impact the extension out the back of Karralika at Fadden would have; she is on the Jackie Howe side of the street. You get an impression from standing at ground level, but I needed to see from her house exactly what the impact was and to ascertain for myself whether that was the truth.

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