Page 950 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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What then happened is that there was a parliamentary agreement with the Greens. There were changes. Priorities changed. That $41 million to rebuild the Canberra Hospital was ripped out of the budget. The $375 million that was put into the forward estimates for the hospital was then relocated into the tram. It was the first availability payment for the tram. That $375 million was exactly the same amount that had been proposed to rebuild the Canberra Hospital. It was exactly the same amount that the Labor Party, with their Greens colleagues, decided to put into the tram.
Amidst all of this we had people like Dr Hall in the emergency department saying that the hospital was dangerously overcrowded and bed occupancy was at dangerous levels. We know the litany of problems. Many of the problems have flowed over to the enormous pressure that are staff are under.
In that context we then came to the situation in 2016 when the minister for health was the Assistant Minister for Health. What was the government’s response? The government’s response was, “No, we are not going to rebuild the Canberra Hospital”. They said in estimates hearings, “We are not going to do anything to rebuild the Canberra Hospital. We are going to crisis manage the emergency infrastructure. We are going to emergency manage as we go.”
That was the way that they were going to approach it. They took the rebuild of the hospital off the table. They said, “This does not need to be done for a decade. We are not going to do anything in terms of rebuilding the hospital for a decade”. They said that specifically. They said that they were going to crisis manage the infrastructure. That is what they said in committee hearings. That was a disgraceful response. That was a disgraceful response from the minister—as she was then, the assistant minister—who was part of this proposal.
What then happened in the lead up to the election in August of that year? The Canberra Liberals announced that we would rebuild the hospital. Broadly, we took the plan that had been proposed previously by the government, that they had taken off the table for a decade. We said, “No, we will do it”. What was the Labor Pty’s response? They said, “You do not need to do that. It is spendthrift. We do not need to do that”.
They ridiculed the plan. They said, “We do not need to invest in the Canberra Hospital.” That is where their heart is, Madam Speaker. That is what they believe. They said, “No, we are not going to rebuild it for a decade.” That was their position.
The Labor Party then put a poll in the field. It might not have been the Labor Party; it might even have been Unions ACT. It is all a bit one and the same. It is difficult to know. But there was a poll in the field asking basically, “Do we need to rebuild the Canberra Hospital?” They wanted to know what the polling said. They wanted to know what the polling was because they knew that this was stinging them in the lead-up to the election.
Obviously the poll came back and said, “No, the people do want this to be done.” As Mrs Dunne has said, on the back of a beer coaster they then came up with this plan for the SPIRE centre. Ms Fitzharris, the minister, was out there front and centre conning
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