Page 1690 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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I will say what I have said many times before: there happens to be an ACT government facility that is located very close to the Canberra Hospital and that is about to be demolished. I am talking about the old CIT site. Every time we talk about how cramped it is at Canberra Hospital I keep on thinking, “Why don’t we expand across the road? It’s not far away; we have got a lot of facilities there.” It, to my mind, is the obvious thing to do. That, I agree, is a bigger discussion.
However in this context the people who will use it clearly have mobility issues and will tend to be using it for a long period because they have an acute condition, not just a couple of times and then it does not really matter; if it were a situation like that, they could maybe organise their friends to drive them or get a taxi or whatever. But because of the nature of the people using it, it does need to be in a position that can be easily accessed, including easily accessed by public transport, because quite a few of the people using this will be primarily using public transport.
We have to remember that there are two components to that. There is the bus time, which is important, but potentially even more important for some of these people is the distance and the time it takes to get from their home to the bus stop and, when they finally get there, the distance and the time from the bus stop to the actual facility. I hope that the government, in looking at the options for a replacement, will look at accessibility for the people who will be using it, and long-term accessibility.
I must say that it looks like we are going to have a love-in here and a very positive outcome. The minister’s amendment appears to deal with these things and talks about appropriate level of access, suitable locations, readily accessible for those on Canberra’s south side. I am hoping that that will encompass the things that I am talking about and I am hopeful that when the minister reports back on these matters in August we will all be able to say, “It’s not sorted yet but we know how it will be sorted and there is a clear path forward.”
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (11.40): I want to briefly speak to thank those in the gallery and Mrs Dunne for making today happen because, if this motion were not on the notice paper, it is highly likely that the hydrotherapy pool would have closed on 30 June. It is a shame that it requires that sort of pressure to be applied for something that is so desperately needed, for what is such an obvious solution, to actually come about. People going to a politician is not the first port of call. Usually there is some chat amongst the users. There will be conversations with perhaps managers of a facility. Emails might go back and forth. And you would like to think that reason would win the day.
But that is not the way it is here. It seems that it is only when there is intense political pressure that you actually get a common-sense solution here in the ACT. It should not be that everything is a battle. It should not be that you have to drag a minister kicking and screaming just to get a basic service delivered by the ACT government. This is core business for a government. These are essential services, and to say, “Just go to the other side of town, you’ll be fine,” does a real disservice to the taxpayers of Canberra, in particular the users of the hospital hydrotherapy pool.
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