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Labor's forward planning would have involved an ongoing role for government nursing home provision for those acute care patients currently at Upper Jindalee. Had we moved that way, following the appropriate and long-term process of consultation, we as a government would have sold Upper Jindalee, no doubt for redevelopment and profit to the Government, and returned that profit to the community by way of our ongoing commitment to another government nursing home service.

What Mrs Carnell has said is that the patients of Upper Jindalee will be guaranteed their bed and Upper Jindalee will be sold. I want to know whether there is any commitment or any condition in that sale about providing beds on that site and for how long. The person who purchases that site may well shift the beds and continue to provide care and pocket the profit on the sale of the land. Under Labor's long-term planning, had that site been sold the profit would have gone into public coffers to again provide government nursing home services to the people of this city. That was a far longer term move than proposals for Lower Jindalee.

Mr Speaker, what has happened in recent weeks, between the last sitting of the Assembly and this sitting, is a very fundamental change in the way nursing home services are provided in this Territory. Traditionally, this service has been seen as a mix of public and private, and, traditionally, that has been the case across Australia. Traditionally, across Australia, governments of varying political persuasions have always seen the need to provide a mix of public and private nursing home services. According to the last set of consolidated figures which the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare published last year, the 1992 figures, it has varied from a high of some 30 per cent in Victoria - Jeff Kennett has been taking the axe to that since - to a low of about 9 per cent in some other States, in particular New South Wales and South Australia.

Mrs Carnell: Less than 10 per cent Australia-wide.

MR CONNOLLY: At least they have a role, Mr Speaker. Mrs Carnell says that it is less than 10 per cent, but at least they have a role. Our level at the moment is about 24 per cent. If Lower Jindalee was moved to the not-for-profit non-government sector and Upper Jindalee or an equivalent facility was retained in government hands - we would have retained it in government hands - the ACT would have that mix of public and private at about that national level. Why is it that, with the exception of Jeff Kennett, governments have seen a need for a continued role in nursing home care? It is because of the desperate need to have that hands-on involvement, to set standards, to influence the level of care provided elsewhere, and to influence occupational health and safety and industrial conditions, which themselves have a vital impact on the level of care that staff are able to provide to patients.

Mrs Carnell gleefully put in a press release part of a letter from Dr Lawrence to me. I sought this morning, from the Secretary of the Department of Health or his officers, access to the letter to which that letter was in response, and briefings to me in relation to that matter, and I was told that the only way that that could be obtained would be by Ms Follett writing to Mr Walker, the Head of Administration, and there would be this long and complex bureaucratic process.

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