Page 1659 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 3 June 2014
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It remains to be seen whether people will feel curtailed through those processes or whether they have achieved the right balance between full public participation and government acting in the best interests of the broader community. I believe that this bill does achieve that balance, but I also welcome the sunset clause and other provisions that will allow us to monitor the success or otherwise of this new approach.
I believe this process ensures that key public opinions are heard and taken into account, while also ensuring that this important facility can be built within a manageable and, hopefully, short time frame. Madam Deputy Speaker, in conclusion I will be supporting this bill today.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Chief Minister, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Health and Minister for Higher Education) (11.31): I thank the minister for planning for his indulgence; I will speak to this bill. It is an important bill which provides certainty to a very important project. This project, the secure mental health unit, and the focus on Symonston as the best site for this unit, has been talked about since 2010, following a site selection process that we went through.
Since that site selection study was undertaken there have been a number of reviews of the project. This was to ensure that the secure mental health unit was built for the long term, not the short term. As members would be aware, the original planning for a secure mental health facility in the ACT had focused on the provision of 15 high-secure beds. I was concerned, after speaking with professionals and experts in the area, that a unit of that size would not provide the ideal therapeutic and rehabilitation environment for vulnerable Canberrans with such complex mental health needs. I asked that a review be undertaken in 2011 around the size and level of security attached to the facility, and also the cost of the facility.
The Symonston site has been picked for a number of reasons. It has been used as a facility by the government for some time, over many years, as the former site of a juvenile detention facility. It is also very well located between the Alexander Maconochie Centre and the Canberra Hospital, where medical needs for these clients will be provided. The location is somewhat removed from a built-up residential area, although there are neighbours within a reasonable proximity, and we will continue to work with those neighbours to address concerns that they have through the delivery of this project.
With respect to the reviews undertaken, one was to look at the cost of the facility, which, for a 15-bed high-secure unit, was provided to me as being in the high $30 million mark, once some of the draft budget cases had been developed. Reviews have been conducted into both the size and the security standard of the facility, and New South Wales Health undertook a planning review of the budget associated with this facility. They recommended, after taking advice from these reviews and from the head of Health, who happens to be a psychiatrist with extensive experience in the provision of forensic mental health services, to the government that a 25-bed facility be constructed with a medium level of security, allowing—
Mr Coe: This is a planning bill.
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