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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 12 Hansard (24 November) . . Page.. 3580 ..


MR HARGREAVES (continuing):

the Chief Minister must accept some significant responsibility. The question is now: To what extent should she accept responsibility and what should she do in a concrete way to accept that responsibility? The coroner went on to say, and again I quote:

Yet there is no doubt, based on all the evidence adduced during the inquest, that the whole project could have been undertaken from its commencement to its conclusion at all levels in a more professional manner. There were systemic failures.

The coroner said categorically:

Mrs Kate Carnell was the minister accepting responsibility at Territory level for the project as Chief Minister.

Mr Speaker, I want to concentrate on basically two issues. The first is the question of why was it that the Chief Minister did not instigate a proper risk assessment when alerted to shortcomings by the representation from the Health Services Union of Australia. And the second is the extent to which the Chief Minister's office and department had responsibility for the debacle. Thus, as head of those organisations, what responsibility should the Chief Minister carry? The HSUA wrote to the Chief Minister on 30 June 1997 indicating:

It appears no risk assessment has been carried out on the possible dangers to those who would be inside the Hospice.

The Chief Minister replied the next day, on 1 July 1997, and I quote directly here:

The ACT Government, through its agent, Totalcare Industries Ltd, has undertaken a number of detailed studies ... The major report [was] prepared by Richard Glenn and Associates ... in February 1996 ... Throughout both the planning and implementation phase of the demolition, risks to the Hospice staff and patients have been constantly assessed.

In the reply she also talked about the Government's technical consultants, and said:

In short, the Government has had an ongoing process of risk assessment by the Government's expert advisers.

But, Mr Speaker, there had been no risk assessments. The Glenn reports were merely feasibility studies, well over a year old and there had been no ongoing process. In short, this information was, as the coroner said, "either inaccurate or misleading or false". No risk assessment, had been completed by 30 June 1997. The coroner was very critical about this lack of process. He said:

A golden opportunity was presented not only to the Chief Minister but the Chief Minister's Department, through their agent TCL -


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