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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3778 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Mr Speaker, the territory has not to date received payment of these monies, including statutory charges, or those required to be paid by the developer in order to activate the approved development application for the Lyneham tennis centre. The lessee and the developer are continuing to work towards resolution of this matter.

The government understands that the developer received a loan approval on 23 August 2001 to cover the purchase of the Lyneham tennis centre, the payment of creditors, and all other costs associated with the transaction. Further, the developer has advised that it will be ready to settle both the purchase and payment of creditors on or around 31 August. I understand that that is now 7 September, Mr Speaker.

A settlement date due to enable the transfer of existing ACT Tennis Holdings to the developer can now be scheduled. This will include the payment of monies to the territory in relation to the transaction as a condition precedent to it being finalised. A scheduled date is necessary to enable the calculation of exact amounts payable up until the date of settlement and the arranging of cheques in respect of land rent owing and interest payable on stamp duty that has been assessed.

Mr Speaker, it is disappointing that the developer's commitment to financing in association with the approval of the development application on 28 May was not fully honoured within specific time frames. Nevertheless, the government is encouraged by the progress during the last few weeks and looks forward to a resolution of the matter without further delay.

Canberra Hospital

MR MOORE: Mr Speaker, I have a response to five questions. I think I can keep them fairly concise. The first relates to an additional matter taken on notice today from Mr Stanhope about staffing at the renal unit. I have been given advice that the acute dialysis unit is experiencing similar staff shortages to the Canberra community dialysis centre. It is partially because of a significant shortage of renal trained nursing staff in addition to the increase in the number of patients being dialysed. The situation has been exacerbated by rostered staff being on long-term sick leave. To add to the difficulties, there are a number of requests from interstate dialysis patients for dialysis being undertaken in Canberra while visiting on holidays. At the moment we are talking about six patients. It is very important that we maintain that because there are people in Canberra who wish to go to other places, so we have to arrange that as well.

A series of strategies are being considered to deal with it. We are rearranging dialysis treatment to coincide with days when staffing is slightly better, and asking trained renal staff to do extra shifts and overtime. They have already been doing this. I visited somebody in the renal unit more than a month ago now and the head of the community renal unit at that time was doing his second shift. I used the opportunity to thank him for that, and I will use this opportunity to thank staff for the work they are doing now. They also try to negotiate with their holiday patients to make other arrangements.

In reply to the point Mr Stanhope raised, they are considering reducing stable patients, where suitable, to have two rather than three dialysis treatments per week. My advice is that this would be an interim measure only. It has been done in other hospitals, but they consider it a last resort. At this point they have not implemented the holiday patient or

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