Page 546 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 19 March 2014
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I am a bit confused about why the Liberal Party are pursuing this—every time they do it just reminds people that they wanted to shut down nurse-led walk-in centres while we are trying to open them up. Mr Hanson quoted from my speech to the comrades, to the party faithful. That is an important speech each year, as Mr Hanson would know when he addresses his party faithful. In fact, probably the most concerning element of today is how he has my speech. It is posted online or something, is it? It is open government.
Mr Hanson did not read the rest of the speech. When I think about the claims that have just been made in this place alleging dishonesty, I think of the selective use of certain elements of my speech and the failure to go on and read the next part of the speech—that is, I will not close the nurse-led walk-in centre service and I will double the funding for that service so we can open centres in Tuggeranong and Belconnen, which is exactly what we are doing.
Mr Hanson: So you were saying you were going to close the walk-in centre at Canberra Hospital, were you?
MS GALLAGHER: The walk-in centre is a service, and here is the policy.
Mr Hanson: You know what you did.
MS GALLAGHER: I do not accept your argument at all. I am happy to table the policy. Our first policy announced in the successful 2012 election campaign goes to this point exactly. It says:
We will open two walk-in centres in Belconnen and Tuggeranong to ensure that people on the north and south of Canberra have easy access to a highly skilled nursing service.
We allocated the funding in last year’s budget, and both walk-in centres are due to open mid-year. It is interesting that when we look at the usage by geographic location, by far the most patients presenting at the walk-in centre are Tuggeranong residents—41.32 per cent in the 18 months to December last year were from Tuggeranong, followed by the next largest group, Woden. Areas like Belconnen and Gungahlin had much lower utilisation of it at 6.2 per cent and four per cent respectively.
The north side of Canberra, once you add it up, would get to about 19 per cent of presentations to the walk-in centres. We believe having one in Belconnen will give people on the north side of Canberra greater access. We know already from the evidence we have collected to date how Tuggeranong people do use it, want to use it and will continue to use it.
Mr Hanson has a glass jaw. Yes, a media release was put out when you went on radio and you said you would close the one at Woden, but you were not opening up other ones. An urgent care centre led by a doctor is not a nurse-led walk-in centre. It simply is not.
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