Page 1600 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 12 May 2015
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of this motion is to try and distract from the fact that this minister, this government, has cut 60 beds from the plan for the University of Canberra hospital. It is this government that is cutting health. It is this government that is cutting hospital beds. What it is trying to do today is run a scare campaign, trying to lay the blame anywhere else.
We want to see good levels of health funding coming in to the ACT. There is no doubt about that. We want to see as much money coming in to the ACT as we can get. But when this government receives money it then has to allocate its priorities. And it is clear that what this government is doing under the health minister is cutting hospital beds to fund light rail. That is what is happening, and that is what he is trying to excuse.
Mr Corbell said health funding should be a government’s highest priority, and I agree. But it is clear that under this minister it is not. It is clear that while this minister is blaming the federal government for the loss of money that was never allocated in the budget, by saying that it should restore funding that was never allocated in a budget, concurrently he is cutting hospital beds.
His speech was obviously written a couple of days ago or he has failed to read the Canberra Times this morning when he refers to the Liberal Party’s policy on health. We announced the other day that we will not be cutting beds from the University of Canberra hospital. We will be guaranteeing and going ahead with what was always planned and what was always promised by this government.
Let me go to that point, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you know this well, and I will be quoting you. Back in 2010-11 and before, there was a botched attempt by this government to take over Calvary. That fell apart. That has been well litigated. The government then came up with a range of options about what might proceed, and that was referred by me in this place to an inquiry by the health committee. The health committee looked at these options and we got some really good ideas coming forward. It was a broadly bipartisan committee. That committee said that we would have a look at all of the options. The government then came up with some suggestions. We basically worked together in a reasonably good spirit of bipartisanship and came up with a number of options that were looked at.
One of them, option E, was part of a government discussion paper which I have here before me. You will remember this, Madam Deputy Speaker: “ACT public hospital services: delivery of additional hospital beds—options analysis”. For the north side, it was 200 beds. That was for the new subacute hospital and it was in the government’s document—200 beds.
The committee reported on that and recommended that it was the way to go. The government agreed in its response to the committee. So everybody was saying there should be a 200-bed north side hospital. We then had The new north Canberra hospital: report on site selection from the government. Page 4 states that it will have 200 beds, and that is what was discussed. That is where this originated. That was supported by the Greens. For Mr Rattenbury’s education, Ms Bresnan was a keen supporter of it. It was one of those rare moments when we all agreed in this place that this was the way to go—200 beds at the University of Canberra hospital.
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