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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 06 Hansard (Wednesday, 23 June 2004) . . Page.. 2485 ..

the role that ward 12B in the Canberra Hospital fulfils. This is the place where people who have experienced serious injury, had a stroke or had a limb amputated go to learn to walk again.

I do not, for a moment wish to say that the work of ward 12B is less important than the work of RILU, far from it. The two can and should work together. To me, the measure of our ability to be a compassionate society rests with our desire to help people get well. When we want people to get well, we want them to experience a quality of life and a quality of independent living. This is what RILU offers. RILU teaches people how to cook again; it teaches people in wheelchairs how to negotiate narrow corridors; it teaches people the basic social skills that we take for granted, such as basic hygiene.

This is why the claims of the ACT health minister, Mr Corbell, are so utterly abhorrent. Oh, sure, he will say—and he has said—that there will be no net loss of beds. This is a mere Sir Humphrey sophistry. If the evidence to the Estimates Committee is anything to go by the minister is committed to closing RILU and moving its clients into ward 12B. To do this is to miss the point of RILU. It is also to miss the point of ward 12B. It also, incidentally, betrays the trust and the will of the NRMA Road Safety Trust.

I do not think anyone of us who has had the chance to listen to Mr Corbell’s doublespeak on health really believes his claims about RILU. I do not think anyone who seriously believes that people with ABIs, people who have had a stroke or amputees will get better service under his plans. Of course they will not. The excuses of the minister are a complete farce.

I would like to put money on the fact that neither the minister nor his senior executives had any idea that RILU came about as a result of a grant from the NRMA Road Safety Trust. I would be happy to take double or nothing, Mr Speaker, on the fact that neither the minister nor his senior executives have any idea of the role that RILU plays within the range of rehabilitation services available in the ACT. And I would be happy to take double or nothing again on the statement, on the idea, that the minister, having struck a deal with the Commonwealth for some interim aged-care funding, was desperate to find an off-campus site for aged care.

Why? Well, the condition of the funding is that it cannot be delivered on a public hospital campus. RILU conveniently is just a few metres off campus. It is clear, that the health minister was desperate for a site to hide the aged-care debacle, and the first one that came up was RILU. Well, Mr Speaker, let me say, through you: Mr Corbell, the gig is up. We know what you are trying to do. Give up now. Leave RILU alone and actually get up off your you-know-what and work to solve the aged-care crisis rather than go through the tiresome rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul routine.

The value of RILU is unquestioned. Indeed, even the Labor backbench value RILU. It was, after all, Mr Hargreaves who first raised the RILU issue in estimates. Having seen Mr Hargreaves soul hung out to dry over continuous registration, I am waiting for the full-force sell-out where he gets up now to support Mr Corbell and his plans for RILU. At least Robert Johnson got the ability to play the guitar for selling his soul. What did Mr Hargreaves get for agreeing to close RILU in August?

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