Page 2554 - Week 08 - Thursday, 14 August 2014
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So we look forward to that accommodation. That will help the tourism industry. It will help to take some of the pressure off the other areas, and we look forward to the master plan from EPIC finally appearing whenever it does.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Deputy Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Housing and Minister for Tourism and Events) (10.46): The Exhibition Park Corporation will focus in the 2014-15 year on increasing the capacity and occupancy of camping facilities and indeed progressing the low-cost tourist accommodation project that Mr Smyth has referred to. It will also continue to provide excellent customer service, continue to improve its sustainable environmental measures, and provide a safe, clean and comfortable environment for residents and visitors alike to enjoy, and I commend the appropriation to the Assembly.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Health Directorate—Schedule 1A, Part 1.13—$257,615,000 (net cost of outputs), $132,251,000 (capital injection), $7,619,000 (payments on behalf of Territory), totalling $397,485,000.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.47): As I rise today, I would just like to start by congratulating Mr Ray Dennis, who I note in the Canberra Times has retired as the CEO of Calvary after 5½ years. I am sure that many of us have had interactions with Mr Dennis, who has, I think, done a great job leading that hospital. I think that he is very well respected by his staff. It is a difficult job running a hospital; there is no question of that. I would like to pass on my congratulations on behalf of the opposition for the great efforts of Mr Dennis and, while I am it, all of the staff there at Calvary, and I look forward to working closely with his replacement.
Madam Speaker, what I would like to go through today in the time allotted is an examination of some of the missed opportunities that have led us to the point where we have far-reaching problems in our health system, an examination of, in particular, a couple of areas of difficulty that we are experiencing, and where we need to go strategically as a direction to get us out of the hole. But you will recall, Madam Speaker, many of the issues that have led us to where we are: the missed opportunities that have occurred, and the capital infrastructure program is principal amongst them. The amount of rollover and delay that we have seen across our infrastructure has been staggering—in some years $60 million of delay in rollover, $70 million. This year is not dissimilar: tens of millions of dollars of health infrastructure that should be built but is not being built on time to provide what we need.
This flows through the health system. It causes a lack of infrastructure that leads to a lack of beds, which flows through to problems in the emergency department. It is all connected. A significant aspect of that is the new hospital tower at Canberra Hospital and what is going on, and I will go into that in more detail as I go. But we have seen, for example, delays in the secure mental health facility. Mrs Jones will go into this in more detail when she talks about mental health. But there is no question that that is an example of the failure to deliver something that was promised, something that was
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