Page 640 - Week 02 - Thursday, 23 March 2023
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MR BRADDOCK: Chief Minister, with the impending closure of Hobart Place General Practice, which provides inclusive health care to transgender, gender diverse and non-binary Canberrans, what can the ACT government do to help this community?
MR BARR: Clearly, this is a distressing situation for the doctors associated with that practice. I heard Dr Clara Tuck Meng Soo talk about the reasons behind this decision. They were pretty clear that it stems from 10 years of neglect of primary health care, of freezing Medicare rebates, of making general practice non-viable. The implications of that are that practices close, that primary healthcare services are diminished and even more pressure is placed, for example, on the public hospital system.
Minister Stephen-Smith has been undertaking an important piece of work around LGBTIQ+ health, looking at a scoping study on needs. We look forward to making some further announcements and investments in this area, building on what we have announced, particularly around our intersex law reforms.
Planning—ACT Planning System Review and Reform Project
MR PETTERSSON: My question is to the minister for planning. Minister, can you please provide an update on the Planning System Review and Reform Project?
MR GENTLEMAN: I thank Mr Pettersson for his interest in planning across the ACT. The Planning System Review and Reform Project is one of the biggest reforms of this term of government. It is a major legislative and social reform that will change the way we do planning in our city. It will shape the growth of our city into the future and will ensure that this growth is sustainable.
The Planning Bill is currently before the Assembly, and the government is considering the recommendations of the planning, transport and city services committee inquiry into the bill. The project has recently reached a huge milestone, with the end of public consultation on the draft new Territory Plan and the draft district strategies. This was a massive engagement program over more than 17Â weeks. Representatives visited every district of Canberra to provide information and to gather as much feedback as we could. I am very pleased with the involvement that we have seen from our community. That is why we are putting the community at the centre of the reform project. Our community is highly engaged in planning because it affects how we live, how we work and how we spend our time.
Throughout this consultation, we have seen people providing their feedback at every opportunity they could. The consultation process included 36 pop-ups across all districts, and nine community workshops. There were also four days of listening spaces, presentations to community councils and an online Q&A session. This is in addition to the YourSay page, which had over 3,300 pieces of feedback for our planners to now consider while they finalise the documents.
MR PETTERSSON: Minister, what have you heard from the community during
the consultation?
MR GENTLEMAN: This was one of the largest ever YourSay engagements, which is a credit to the excellent work of the EPSDD communications team, as well as the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video