Page 1692 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 15 May 2019
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website! It is then a three-hour, ten-minute return trip to the University of Canberra hospital plus the time spent walking to the pool, getting changed, having your therapy, getting changed, walking back to the bus stop.
Mrs Dunne: And hoping your connections work.
MS LAWDER: That is right. As opposed to currently at the Canberra Hospital what would be a 21-minute drive, they may be looking at a five-hour round trip to get to the University of Canberra using Transport Canberra’s journey planner this morning—the expedition planner. From Banks, 11 Crespin Place, the time is slightly longer—an 11-minute walk to the nearest bus stop, 700 metres, and then one hour 42 minutes one way on the bus, which makes a-three hour 24-minute return as opposed to the three-hour ten-minute return from Conder. In Gordon, using 45 Clem Hill Street, it is again a three-hour 24-minute return plus an eight minute, allegedly, walk to the nearest bus stop 500 metres away.
This is just not feasible for someone who is experiencing severe pain and mobility issues. If we are serious about wanting people to use the bus we need to have a better bus network but we need to have these facilities closer to where people live. That is the main point of this. I would like to thank Mrs Dunne for the work she has done on bringing this motion to this place and all the considerable work that has gone on before now to do that.
As Mr Coe has alluded to, bringing it out into the public is not an easy decision for an organisation such as Arthritis ACT. I know this from my previous work in the community sector. It can be a difficult decision but I applaud Arthritis ACT for doing exactly what they are set up to do, and that is to advocate on behalf of their members. I would like to thank them for doing that, for advocating what would be the best possible result for their members. That is all we ask them to do, and they have done a great job of that.
To seniors generally who have expressed their concerns to me about the closure of the Canberra Hospital pool—especially for those in the Lanyon Valley but those in Tuggeranong as a whole, who have such a distance to travel already to their hydrotherapy pool, which is pretty much doubled if they go to the University of Canberra hydrotherapy pool—I would say, “All is not lost yet. We are hopeful of a result thanks to Mrs Dunne and an amendment from the minister.” I only hope we do not revert to the position of saying that the 31 to 32-degree pools at Lakeside Leisure Centre or the new Stromlo one are the solution because that is not the solution for the people who need access to hydrotherapy.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.50): Madam Assistant Speaker, I will speak on the amendment and seek leave to move an amendment to the amendment. As I said in my earlier remarks, I welcome cautiously the amendment that has been circulated by the minister. I echo the words of Mr Coe, Ms Lawder and Mrs Jones that, while we welcome this change, it should not have been this difficult. However, we are being quite cautious here. The minister has a track record of saying that she will deliver particular things and then not delivering in the way that you get the impression she has undertaken to do.
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