Page 1024 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 19 March 2013
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being delayed. Minister, can you outline to the Assembly why you made the decision to delay this planning and possibly the tower block?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. I find it a little bit unusual in the sense that he was present in the annual report hearings where we did discuss the nature of the decision that was yet to be taken by government. I pointed out that a decision had not been taken.
The issue facing the government at this point in time, and which indeed is occupying my mind when making the decisions about the next stage of the capital plans in health, is how to deliver the same amount of beds with the money we have available now over the next, say, two to three years. What is the best configuration of that? We have to build a secure mental health unit. We need to expand beds at Calvary. We need to start the work on the new University of Canberra public hospital. The question that I am faced with is: is spending $41 million on the design of a building actually the best use of taxpayers’ money at this point in time or is it better to use that money to, for example, build the secure unit and work on the other expansion of health services and then move to the tower block in a few years time?
That is the decision, and it is a decision that the budget cabinet has not taken at this point, but it will need to be taken in the next month. I explained all of this at annual reports hearings.
MADAM ACTING SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, a supplementary?
MR HANSON: Minister, what research or data has changed or is new that has caused you to reconsider this decision, and when did you make this decision to reconsider the project?
MS GALLAGHER: What has changed has been, I think, understanding over the last four years around the delivery of capital on a brownfield location. We have got a lot better at understanding the impact of construction on a very busy hospital site, and I have to be mindful of that. We have done the cancer centre, the adult mental health unit, the women’s and children’s hospital and a car park, all at the time that we were expanding facilities on that site. It has presented challenges to us.
The other issue is the capital available to the government, at this point in time and for future health expenditure. We made some very strong commitments about expanding health services in the election campaign, and we will deliver on those, but I think it would be wrong of me to just proceed with the design of this building, and that is spending $41 million on just the design of this building, at a time when I have more pressing infrastructure needs in health, and that is specifically, at this point in time, the secure mental health unit.
That is the question that I am deliberating on as minister, and when I am looking at the available capital for the health redevelopment, when I am looking at the pressures
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