Page 1079 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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MISS C BURCH: Minister, what is the government’s response to the claims from the Woden Valley Community Council of poor planning?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Miss Burch for the question. I have had the pleasure of attending the Woden Valley Community Council to talk about the SPIRE project. I am happy to do so again. I think we were there for about two hours last time. Obviously, the chair of the Woden Valley Community Council has her own views about how development at Canberra Hospital should progress. In line with the views of the Canberra Liberals, she would have liked to see us go into this pandemic with a big hole in the middle of Canberra Hospital: demolish building 3, create a big hole in the middle of Canberra Hospital, reduce the overall capacity of Canberra Hospital through a three or four-year build period, and provide no surge capacity for the ACT’s public hospital system whatsoever.
The ACT government took the advice, as there was work through the building 2/3 project, that this would result in a reduction in capacity in Canberra Hospital for a number of years and instead has taken a different route. We are instead making the biggest investment in healthcare infrastructure since self-government in the SPIRE project. It is a well thought-through project that is being closely engaged not only with clinicians but with consumers and with the local community.
As members would be aware, last year I established the local community reference group to work through with the community some of the concerns that they had expressed. It was also about ensuring that we continue to get community input to deliver the best possible outcome for the Canberra community from this major infrastructure project: the delivery of a new emergency surgical and critical-care facility for the Canberra Hospital. The chair of the Woden Valley Community Council is a member of that community reference group and can put her views forward in that as well as through the public realm.
MRS JONES: Minister, how many further versions of the SPIRE project does the government expect to release before the next ACT election?
MS STEPHEN-SMITH: I thank Mrs Jones for the supplementary question. I have said multiple times in this place that we are in an ongoing design process for the SPIRE project. This is a major investment in health infrastructure—a modernisation and expansion of Canberra Hospital. It is really important that this is done with the engagement of clinicians, consumers and the local community. The decision to connect the SPIRE building to building 2, across Hospital Road, was a direct response to the community feedback and to the evolving design elements of the SPIRE project, and to the challenges that were going to be faced in terms of how Hospital Road would operate, with the two buildings on opposite sides.
We are continuing to think through those detailed design processes. I participated in the most recent consumer reference group meeting just last week, where the architect, Silver Thomas Hanley, who was consulting with Major Projects Canberra and the project board in relation to this project, went through their current thinking in relation to the design with the consumer reference group. They have been closely engaged in this project. As we work through the request for tender process, which will close in
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