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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 7 Hansard (2 July) . . Page.. 2195 ..
MR MOORE (continuing):
diagnosis and that I signed off earlier today. I would be happy to provide you with a copy or that and to show you where we are going with dual diagnosis, which I think is quite interesting. I think you will find that useful.
I would now like to come back to Mr Berry and the hospice. According to Mr Berry, the Government has been rewriting history. "Michael Moore said, with the wisdom of hindsight, we really ought not to have sited the hospice on the Acton Peninsula". At the time, I agreed with Mr Berry, because, like Mr Berry, I had gone to an election saying there should be a health facility on the Acton Peninsula. But it is no good for Mr Berry now to say that Kate Carnell has deliberately undermined it; that it was all her fault; that it was a perfectly good deal at the time; that it was a terrific deal at the time; and that everybody realised it was a good deal at the time but things have changed. The editorial in the Canberra Times on 10 February 1994 puts the lie to the misrepresentation that Mr Berry is making on this issue. Among other things, it said:
It would be idle to pretend that this sort of nonsense has been hitherto entirely unknown from state-level politicians, but even most western and northern premiers and chief ministers adept in inventing and developing confrontations with the wicked Commonwealth for local purposes would regard this particular piece of crass populism as well beneath them.
What was the crass populism that the editorial referred to? Referring to what Mr Berry said, the editorial states:
"Who is going to come around and evict the dying after five years?", he asked. "If the NCPA wants to boot people off, they can buy the site".
They have booted people off - that is the crunch - although they have given us 18 months.
Mr Stanhope: Only because they have got the land, Minister.
MR MOORE: Mr Stanhope interjects, "Only because they have got the land". But the editorial shows that Mr Berry was warned at the time. This is when he announced it but had not done it. He was warned and warned that this is what would happen, so it was not just because they had the land. Listen, Mr Stanhope, to what the editorial said:
The questions raised go well beyond issues of his taste or his judgment: he is proposing to spend $2.8 million or more to refurbish this hostage to his Government's ambitions. Any recurrent expenditure on a hospice on the site is almost bound to be more expensive than it would be were it located close to other health facilities - since it would either lack the economies of common services or have to pay a premium to get them.
This is the critical part.
Opposition members interjected.
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