Page 55 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 12 February 2008
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MR STANHOPE: Rather than resiling from the imposition of pay parking at Canberra Hospital—
Mr Pratt: And then, after all that pain, you lost money.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Pratt, I warn you.
MR STANHOPE: as has been previously indicated in relation to plans that the government has announced and funded for the installation of a major parking station at the Canberra Hospital and the provision over the last year of significant parking at Canberra Hospital, at a cost of around $2 or $3 million, let me say that the issue of parking at our hospitals is something that the government takes very seriously.
Certainly the model that was implemented at Canberra Hospital was not popular. No parking fee regime is ever popular. The regime in its implementation at the Canberra Hospital aroused considerable concern. That was essentially because of the nature and the response with pay-at-the-time parking without a capacity to provide for pay-as-you-leave parking. The configuration of the car parking arrangements or the capacity of the Canberra Hospital militated against pay as you leave. The government implemented a timed parking regime which the government decided to terminate, for a number of reasons. First, there was its unpopularity and difficulties in its administration. But equally importantly there are major redevelopment plans and there is major investment which the government is making and proposes to make in the Canberra Hospital. We see the first steps in that redevelopment in the linear accelerator.
Mrs Burke: Point of order, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Point of order.
Mrs Burke: The subject matter relates to pay parking; it does not relate to the operation of the hospital.
MR SPEAKER: He was talking about pay parking.
Mrs Burke: Yes. Stick to the subject matter.
MR STANHOPE: I was talking about the reasons that underpinned the decision that the government took in relation to the removal of the pay parking regime as it existed. There are a number of reasons for that.
MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order.
MR STANHOPE: There are a number of reasons for that. One was its unpopularity and the difficult configuration and the difficulty in administering a pay-as-you-leave parking regime at a public hospital. We acknowledge that. We are big enough to own up to it and to actually reverse that particular decision. But there was a range of other equally important considerations which went to the need to utilise the car parks at the Canberra Hospital for major investments in infrastructure for the benefit of the people
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