Page 3458 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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there will be the maternity access strategy in place to better coordinate and provide better information for women who are having a baby in the ACT about what services are available and to support them to identify the most appropriate place and pathway for them to progress their journey, with their midwife, with their doctor, in partnership with their general practitioner if that is their preferred option, and between Calvary Public Hospital, Bruce and Canberra Hospital, both of which provide excellent maternity services. There has recently been the refurbishment of Calvary maternity, which I had the opportunity to visit last week.
Mrs Dunne: Point of order.
MADAM SPEAKER: Minister, resume your seat.
Mrs Dunne: Part of the question was specifically about whether the minister was considering outsourcing to private providers. I would like her to be directly relevant to that part of the question as well.
MADAM SPEAKER: The trouble is, Mrs Dunne, that when there are multiple parts to a question, the minister has two minutes to answer as they see fit. She is being relevant to the topic.
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Dunne. No, I am not considering outsourcing to private providers. What I am considering doing, and what we will be doing from the end of September, is improving the information that is available to women who are having babies in the ACT about the excellent public services that are available at both Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital, Bruce.
Environment—conservation
MS CODY: My question is to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. Minister, what is the government doing to protect the environment in our bush capital?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Ms Cody for her interest in the environment and in Canberra in general. The government is committed to environmental conservation. We are very lucky to live in our bush capital, surrounded by parks and wildlife that all Canberrans can enjoy.
Important species are being protected in our reserves through careful management and innovative restoration practices. We have extended and improved habitat for the pink-tailed worm-lizard and have been restoring the threatened ecological species of the box-gum woodland. Some of the biggest, best connected, most botanically diverse examples of their type, ACT woodlands are nationally significant. We have retained over a third of original woodland, much of which is protected within our many nature reserves. There are some 10,000 hectares of lowland grassy woodland in our nature reserves, with over 2,000 hectares added under the current Labor government since the commencement of the woodland conservation strategy.
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