Page 3093 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 17 October 2007
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deficit is a surplus of almost $200 million. The ACT public was told that these sites would cost too much to bring up to standard, yet the total maintenance cost currently rated critical, essential or important for the primary school sites under consultation is less than $2.6 million, or $3.75 million, including discretionary costs.
Compared with the $110 million allocated to refurbishment of the remaining sites, as well as $175 million for building new schools, it becomes very difficult to believe the government’s claim that these 10 schools could not have been retained due to cost factors. It would be wonderful if the government would admit that it has made a mistake and take Mt Neighbour and Rivett off the for sale list. Save Our Schools—incidentally, the Greens will back them in this—is also calling for the ACT government to place a three to 10-year moratorium on all former school site land sales, as communities have requested, during the current consultation process.
Canberra Hospital
Gungahlin
MR SESELJA (Molonglo) (6.16): I apologise to the Assembly ahead of time if I am repeating myself. I cannot remember whether I had the opportunity to do this in the September sittings and I felt it was important enough, if I had not, to get it on the record.
I just wanted to express my thanks and my wife’s thanks to all of the staff at Canberra Hospital following the birth of our youngest, Olivia. It was quite an amazing service that we had. Dr Annual Snedden looked after Ros during the birth and Kylie was the midwife. I never found out her last name, unfortunately, but Dr Snedden and Kylie in particular were just brilliant. The care that Ros had all through the pregnancy, right up until the birth and after the birth, was outstanding.
To all of the staff there, we really were treated very well. Ros was treated very well, Olivia was born healthy and it was a fantastic experience. We have now had four children through the Canberra hospital system, three at Canberra and one at Calvary. Each time the experience has been excellent. The staff have been professional and caring. We have really never had any issues with the birth of any of our children and we are both very grateful for the service that we get. When we criticise very real problems in the health system, it needs to be put in the context that many of us in the Canberra community do experience very good service at various times. I really wanted to get that on the record and to thank particularly Dr Snedden, Kylie and all of the other staff who looked after us.
I also just wanted to also say a couple of words about my recent community consultation out in Gungahlin. I regularly try to get out to the shopping centres in the various parts of my electorate. Gungahlin is one of the most important in terms of the needs of the area. I do take very seriously the needs of Gungahlin residents, as I do all residents in Molonglo and Canberra generally.
One of the issues that people had concerns about when they came to my shopping centre stall was public transport links. Some of the cutbacks in ACTION buses in recent times have affected Gungahlin. Some of the off-peak service cutbacks have
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