Page 3084 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 August 2008
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Mr Mulcahy: Making money; that’s all.
MR SMYTH: Mr Mulcahy interjects that it is probably making money. I suspect he is probably right. But let us give them the opportunity to explain to their community—the community that they have served, the community that they have taken an awful lot of money out of over past years. The damage that you can have caused to a local community in losing one of those key elements—if a shopping centre has a supermarket, a newsagent, a butcher and a chemist, and, if they are lucky enough, a GP, that is a really viable centre.
What we will see in Wanniassa—in fact, from Drakeford Drive eastwards, with the exception of the Kambah village—is an entire area denuded of medical practice. That has a flow-on effect. Those people who go to the medical practice then go to the chemist; while their script is being filled at the chemist, they do the evening shop. They might go down to the newsagency and buy a paper. They might go to the coffee shop and have a coffee. They might go to the takeaway and get some food for the evening. Whatever it is, it is keeping people local. All of us in this place at various times, from the various discussions we have had about the community we want to live in, understand the importance of the local shop.
I congratulate Mrs Burke for this and I congratulate Mary Porter for agreeing—and the minister and everybody for saying that this is really important. Whilst fundamentally it is about the GPs and the services they provide to their patients, it is about a community that is being attacked by a firm that is slowly rolling back the level of service to meet its needs and not the community’s.
That is not the attitude we had when my family was in business—and we were in business for 40 years. We knew fundamentally that to look after the community was what we were there to do. We made a living out of it, yes. But we put back in. It is about time that this firm in particular, Primary Health Care, understood that they have to pay a dividend for the privilege of serving the community that is Wanniassa. They should pay a dividend, and that is to maintain that service where it is.
This decision must be reversed. If we can use the power of the community and this Assembly—these speeches tonight will be repeated elsewhere; I am sure we will all send them to our constituents and I would urge everybody to send this part of the Hansard, when it is proofed, to all of their constituents. I am sure that someone will bring it to the attention of Primary Health Care in Sydney. I certainly hope that the owners of the building will be informed; I am sure they will. It says that, as a community, we, their representatives in this Assembly, place great stock by the local community and we will not let anyone, no matter who they are, come in and attack our communities in this way without explanation. If you have a reason for moving the practice, tell us that reason; help us to understand it. If it is simply putting profits before people, providing a lesser service, catching people in your web and then moving them to suit your needs, we do not want that sort of practice carrying on here in the ACT.
I commend Mrs Burke for moving the motion and I commend those opposite throughout the chamber for agreeing. I hope that this sends a solid message to people about the way they conduct their business in the ACT.
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