Page 882 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 9 April 2014
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During the election campaign, I and a team doorknocked over 6,000 south Tuggeranong residents about the very topic of health care in Tuggeranong. ACT Labor’s commitment was to increase the health services in Tuggeranong by creating an additional centre in Tuggeranong. The Brindabella community are by far the highest users of the current Woden walk-in centre, with over 40 per cent of the presentations, as we heard from Mr Barr earlier, being from the Tuggeranong area. It has meant that it was, therefore, a good investment to upgrade health facilities closer to home in the heart of Tuggeranong. This will also take some pressure off facilities at Woden.
Most residents that we spoke to throughout our visits during the campaign were pleased with the government’s decision to take walk-in centres into the town centres, boosting the availability to those who need it most. With some $951,000 being allocated to the Tuggeranong and Belconnen walk-in centre design and fit-out in the 2013-14 budget, this government is showing its commitment to the future of these walk-in clinics—another important health structure for the Tuggeranong area.
This is exactly what the government’s health reform is about—spending money and ensuring health services for the Tuggeranong valley. The government is committed to ensuring that affordable and, wherever possible, free health care—bulk-billing, if you like—is accessible to all residents who require it.
I am speaking against the motion because the government is committed to continue to provide improved and upgraded healthcare facilities across the ACT in an effort to bring healthcare facilities closer to those who need it, whether it be in the north, south, east or west of the territory, despite what the motion might insinuate. It will be great in the future to see more investment in the national health cooperative, more upgrades such as the one we have recently opened at the Tuggeranong community health centre and in the near future it will be exciting to see the Canberra nurse-led walk-in centre opened at Tuggeranong.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (5.05), in reply: I am just stunned at that last offering from Mr Gentleman. Here is a serious motion about services to a particular part of his electorate and I do not think he spoke about the particular service once. He just stood up and said, “I’m against this,” and then proceeded to talk about everything but the motion. And I expect Mr Gentleman to come back down and correct the record. He said that I had made comments against the government’s investment in Lanyon and Tuggeranong, and I did not. So I suggest he review the record and come back and apologise and withdraw the comments that are incorrect and misleading.
This is a serious motion. It actually raises a couple of serious issues. The first is the motion itself and the particular service and the second is the attitude that the government has to the way people bring their concerns to members of the opposition and, indeed, members of the government and what we do with it. And I will deal with the actual place itself. To have Mr Barr stand up and attack the Liberal Party, because we voted against Medicare or something that happened a long time ago or something that is happening in the commonwealth today, at a time when his government is proposing to cut the health budget in the future, is galling in the extreme. He says, “Let’s not—
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