Page 2857 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 14 August 2019
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Probably the worst piece of misinformation was when then health minister Fitzharris said that a hydrotherapy pool was being built at the Stromlo aquatic centre. There was then a circling of the wagons as the sport and recreation minister tried to cloud the issue of whether the pool would be suitable for hydrotherapy sessions.
It was not long before the world knew that there was never going to be a properly equipped and specified hydrotherapy pool at Stromlo; it had been a ruse to close down questioning in estimates. It was not long before the world knew that this was a strategy to throw the Canberra Hospital pool stakeholders off the scent, in the hope that the government could close the pool quietly and no-one would notice.
Information and data sent to the government were ignored or misrepresented, including publicly in the media. The former minister was caught out during a radio interview giving false data about pool usage. Even when the correct information—and the government already had that information—was given to the station during the interview, the minister failed to correct what she had said. Perhaps she thought it would have weakened her argument too much about the need to close the pool if she had been entirely truthful on radio.
This Labor-Greens government has even stooped low enough as to tell the Arthritis ACT executive director who she can talk to and who she cannot. Thankfully, the executive director is not one who will be muzzled. Again, it is all part of the government’s strategy.
At the presentation last week I noted that health officials were concerned that even though the pool, when it was built in the early 1970s, met the construction standards of the day, life has moved on and it does not meet the standards required today. Yet, in other questions about health assets meeting today’s standards, I have been told repeatedly that they were built to the required standards of the day, so they are good to use now, even though they do not meet today’s standards. This sort of conflict is part of the government’s strategy to build arguments to support the case for closure of the pool.
We were also told, both at the presentation and in the Nous report, that the pool mechanics could break down at any time and that replacement parts are not available. But in the last 12 months the pool at the Canberra Hospital has had no hours—not one hour—of downtime due to unplanned equipment failures. I also know that the maintenance people at the Canberra Hospital have the skills and workshop tools that would enable them to manufacture parts that are unobtainable elsewhere. By contrast, the new hydrotherapy pool at the University of Canberra Hospital has had two unscheduled breakdowns during the past year, due to unscheduled equipment failure.
These are just some of the strategies that this government has adopted in its quest to close the Canberra Hospital hydrotherapy pool before there is a suitable replacement. It is these strategies that have led to the talking at cross-purposes. The latest one is that the plant room under the pool presents safety risks to the maintenance crews. Yet, in the minister’s own statement given in this place yesterday, we heard about all the money that has been spent on that pit in recent years.
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