Page 2426 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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Will it need an appropriation? I think they are all reasonable questions to be asking. This is again about having clarity. If the transfer occurs at a particular stage, where would we expect this significant level of funding to come from? It is a significant level of funding and we need clarity around that.
Recommendation 55 asks the minister to inform MLAs about the purchase details once the purchase is close to finalisation. It also asks the minister to explain what the government’s plans are if the sale does not go ahead. We know the government wants to purchase Calvary so that it has security over infrastructure that it has invested in. So the question is: what investments is it prepared to make if the purchase does not go ahead? Again, that is just about having clarity about the future provision of health services in the ACT, and again I think it is a fairly reasonable recommendation to be addressed.
The other key substantive issue that the community have raised is the fact that taxpayers’ money must be used to purchase a facility that the government gave to Calvary some 20 to 30 years ago. But this is something that occurred many years ago and so we need to be pragmatic and deal with the circumstances that are before us. For that reason, I have moved the amendment to Mr Hanson’s motion.
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (11.07): My concern with Ms Bresnan’s amendment is that it does not actually hold the government to account as I believe that they should be; that it does not provide for a business case explanation in detail, of which I think the community deserves to understand the full implications in both physical terms and also in the provision of health care, and which I think the people of Canberra should be provided with before we in this Assembly should be in a position to make a decision. It also does not ask for any alternative positions.
As the minister has alluded, this sale may not go through. It may go through. If we have a clearer understanding of what alternative positions are being considered, that would provide the community with a far more comprehensive ability to understand the issue. At the moment, we have basically a position of the government holding a gun to the heads of the opposition and of the community, saying: “This is what we are doing. There are no better plans. There is nothing else we can do. We have got to do it. This is a once-in-a-lifetime—rush, rush, rush and hurry it through.” Without an understanding of what the alternatives are if the sale does not go through, I do not think the community are in a position where they can support this.
Also what is missing from Ms Bresnan’s amendment I believe is a comprehensive process of consultation. It should be reasonably expected that for such a significant purchase, which involves both Calvary and Clare Holland House, for such a major impact on our budget, and because of, I guess, the emotional attachment that a lot of people have to Calvary, they should be consulted and informed properly about all the ramifications of this decision, so that, if it is the right thing to do—and we are open to that view—we make sure that the community get behind this decision and are fully supportive of it and that it does not create any sense of fear or disturbance amongst people in the community that use both of those facilities, many of whom are the most vulnerable people in our community,
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