Page 2892 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 August 2013
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Drugs Services, Katrina Bracher, who described staff as tired, worn out and fearful. We have a situation where we have staff who are under enormous pressure in a very complex area. And we need to make sure that work is being done to resolve those pressures.
I think there is no question that the process for delivering a secure mental health facility has been flawed. I acknowledge that it is a complex facility to deliver, but the reality is that the government set time frames. They should have known that, and they did know that. And they said that this was a facility that was going to be delivered, initially I think, in 2010 and then should have been opened two years ago and operational. And it is yet to even start. There is no construction started at all. And in fact, it is now due in 2017.
This will be something that has been promised but not delivered at three elections. And that is unacceptable. I do not think the minister would think that it is acceptable. Although there are a range of reasons for that and there are always excuses, again what we are seeing is the delivery just not matching the rhetoric.
This was something that was the subject of a motion, I think moved by Dr Bourke last week, and was canvassed in some detail. As I have indicated, we will give our support to this project. And I have indicated that, if what the government brings forward is reasonable, then we will support this facility being built as quickly as we can get it. But I do want to make the point that it is not something that we should be circumventing the planning process on simply because the government bungled it. And it needs to be acknowledged that when we do fast-track a project and use legislation to do that, there should be some pretty good reasons for doing that. But that is just one piece of infrastructure that is subject to delay or cost blowout.
It does bother me that, when we look at a range of infrastructure programs, for example, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander alcohol and drug rehab centre—and that is something that has been discussed at length in this Assembly and has been promised repeatedly—again, we are seeing nothing in terms of delivery.
In 2012 the government promised an additional $250 million for health infrastructure. That was the promise, and that is the sort of promise that we see in the budget. But the reality is that they only delivered $72 million. There is still no funding for the University of Canberra hospital. That is something that has been talked about and promised.
The $800 million hospital tower block was something that was discussed in some detail in the estimates committee. The very flawed procurement process meant that people, businesses, went through the procurement processes, went through the tendering process, and spent a lot of money and had the government then just sort of flick the whole project. And those people, who were under the expectation that there was going to be a project and that they were doing the work with some possibility that they would be selected, then had the project just basically disappear in front of them.
Other delays that we see as part of the $100 million of rollovers—I say that again, $100 million in health rollovers—or reprofiling include the central sterilising services,
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