Mr HENDERSON - 2000-05-11
In last year’s budget you promised Territorians a new $6m accident and emergency facility at Royal Darwin Hospital in Appropriation, L-A-W, law. What you delivered was a new coat of paint. Territorians have heard it all before. You promise big and don’t deliver. Isn’t this another example of a CLP broken promise, and with your prize for broken promises why should any Territorian have any faith that next week’s round of CLP promises will actually be delivered?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, while we are on broken promises, I stood for election with the CLP at the last election and we went on a variety of platforms, and one of them was mandatory sentencing. The reason it wasn’t so contentious then, and is now, is that so did these dudes. In their election manifesto they went for mandatory sentencing too. It is only latterly they have changed. So while they might talk about that as an awakening, or some sort of a road-to- Damascus thing, or ‘we use to like dams and now we don’t’, or ‘we use to like mandatory sentencing and now we don’t’, the Territory government has been very, very clear about these policies - including the development of Royal Darwin Hospital.
In the last budget, we looked to provide for one of the critical areas in the hospital, which was the accident emergency facility. We put aside $6m for that, and that cash is still available. On becoming health minister, and when the process of the request for proposals was terminated, we looked to go back to our master plan. It is my belief that you can run up to something and muck it up - which is how we ended up with the tower block at Royal Darwin because that is what the Commonwealth did - or you can walk up to it and make sure you do it properly.
In the case of the accident and emergency facility, I have absolutely no problem with the fact that we haven’t rushed in with cement mixers and built it up because, as I said some months ago in front of cameras so it’s on the public record, we wanted to make sure that our master plan was such that as we continued to redevelop at that site, the appropriate site for an accident emergency facility was picked.
I am hopeful that in the next week or so we can make further announcements about Royal Darwin Hospital. But I put firmly on the record that Stage 1 continues to be a new accident and emergency facility, the funds for which are available. I’m still hopeful that we can commence work this financial year, for which the funds were appropriated. Although we are talking about building something for next year in the budget that will come down next week, we still have a couple of months of spending for this year.
I’m still hopeful that the work for the accident and emergency facility will go ahead. I’m hopeful it will go ahead in the context of a master plan. I am quite convinced that the new works that are put into Royal Darwin Hospital have to stand the test of time. There have to be facilities that go in that can serve this population as it grows towards a million people, as we have talked about in this House before. We have to make sure that they are appropriately constructed and that the design is not something that has been pinched from Canada and is some years out of date when we get it. It is more than just putting a little pimple on the edge of the giant watermelon that is Royal Darwin Hospital. It is making sure whatever we put there is incorporated into it.
One would hope that the member for Wanguri would be aware that accident and emergency facilities don’t just exist by themselves. It is necessary for them to be in close communication with imaging departments, with ICUs, and with theatres. We want to make sure that when we build this facility, some of those synergies are available in the plan, to be rolled into future time.
It is not a broken promise. The opposition’s little campaign of saying, ‘You said this and you meant otherwise’, can be paraded out for the benefit of members here, because I started with an A to Z of opposition fibs, and I think I’m missing the Q. But I have almost all 26 of them. I can, at a later time, parade before this House the variety of lies that have been told in the health arena from the opposition that have been proved to be absolute falsehoods. It is unfortunate ...
Ms Martin: What about the A & E? What about the private hospital …
Mr DUNHAM: What about the Leader of the Opposition’s current adviser who called for an ambulance during a by-election when there was already an ambulance there? It was proved to be a lie, she refused to retract it, she lost the by-election, now she’s advising you. So you can understand where the lies come from.
We also have Batman and Robin, Mr Nieuwenhoven and the member for Wanguri, who feed each other various lies that must come out of the tearoom or something, but they usually take the opportunity of slagging Royal Darwin Hospital unfairly. I hope they desist from this.
In the case of Mr Nieuwenhoven, if he is intending to stand for election and is using this as some sort of a campaign, he should resign from the union because I do not think it does his present job any good to be politicising it in this way. And I don’t think it does the opposition any good to be piously pointing to government promises which we keep, when they have such a poor record of lying.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, while we are on broken promises, I stood for election with the CLP at the last election and we went on a variety of platforms, and one of them was mandatory sentencing. The reason it wasn’t so contentious then, and is now, is that so did these dudes. In their election manifesto they went for mandatory sentencing too. It is only latterly they have changed. So while they might talk about that as an awakening, or some sort of a road-to- Damascus thing, or ‘we use to like dams and now we don’t’, or ‘we use to like mandatory sentencing and now we don’t’, the Territory government has been very, very clear about these policies - including the development of Royal Darwin Hospital.
In the last budget, we looked to provide for one of the critical areas in the hospital, which was the accident emergency facility. We put aside $6m for that, and that cash is still available. On becoming health minister, and when the process of the request for proposals was terminated, we looked to go back to our master plan. It is my belief that you can run up to something and muck it up - which is how we ended up with the tower block at Royal Darwin because that is what the Commonwealth did - or you can walk up to it and make sure you do it properly.
In the case of the accident and emergency facility, I have absolutely no problem with the fact that we haven’t rushed in with cement mixers and built it up because, as I said some months ago in front of cameras so it’s on the public record, we wanted to make sure that our master plan was such that as we continued to redevelop at that site, the appropriate site for an accident emergency facility was picked.
I am hopeful that in the next week or so we can make further announcements about Royal Darwin Hospital. But I put firmly on the record that Stage 1 continues to be a new accident and emergency facility, the funds for which are available. I’m still hopeful that we can commence work this financial year, for which the funds were appropriated. Although we are talking about building something for next year in the budget that will come down next week, we still have a couple of months of spending for this year.
I’m still hopeful that the work for the accident and emergency facility will go ahead. I’m hopeful it will go ahead in the context of a master plan. I am quite convinced that the new works that are put into Royal Darwin Hospital have to stand the test of time. There have to be facilities that go in that can serve this population as it grows towards a million people, as we have talked about in this House before. We have to make sure that they are appropriately constructed and that the design is not something that has been pinched from Canada and is some years out of date when we get it. It is more than just putting a little pimple on the edge of the giant watermelon that is Royal Darwin Hospital. It is making sure whatever we put there is incorporated into it.
One would hope that the member for Wanguri would be aware that accident and emergency facilities don’t just exist by themselves. It is necessary for them to be in close communication with imaging departments, with ICUs, and with theatres. We want to make sure that when we build this facility, some of those synergies are available in the plan, to be rolled into future time.
It is not a broken promise. The opposition’s little campaign of saying, ‘You said this and you meant otherwise’, can be paraded out for the benefit of members here, because I started with an A to Z of opposition fibs, and I think I’m missing the Q. But I have almost all 26 of them. I can, at a later time, parade before this House the variety of lies that have been told in the health arena from the opposition that have been proved to be absolute falsehoods. It is unfortunate ...
Ms Martin: What about the A & E? What about the private hospital …
Mr DUNHAM: What about the Leader of the Opposition’s current adviser who called for an ambulance during a by-election when there was already an ambulance there? It was proved to be a lie, she refused to retract it, she lost the by-election, now she’s advising you. So you can understand where the lies come from.
We also have Batman and Robin, Mr Nieuwenhoven and the member for Wanguri, who feed each other various lies that must come out of the tearoom or something, but they usually take the opportunity of slagging Royal Darwin Hospital unfairly. I hope they desist from this.
In the case of Mr Nieuwenhoven, if he is intending to stand for election and is using this as some sort of a campaign, he should resign from the union because I do not think it does his present job any good to be politicising it in this way. And I don’t think it does the opposition any good to be piously pointing to government promises which we keep, when they have such a poor record of lying.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016