Strathmont Pool

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:09): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking a question of the Minister for Human Services regarding the Strathmont swimming pool.

Leave granted.

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY: Yesterday, I asked the minister whether all user groups of the Strathmont swimming pool had been accommodated with alternative sites. The minister responded, 'My advice is that as of yesterday they have.' My questions to the minister are:

1. Have all swimmers and people who access the pool for therapy been accommodated with alternative sites?

2. How many school students with disabilities access the pool therapy?

3. Have all those school students been accommodated at alternative sites?

4. Will the minister guarantee that those students being shunted off to other sites will not experience any fee increases?

5. Has the minister read Hansard in regard to yesterday's question time, in particular to the Strathmont swimming centre? If she has, does the minister acknowledge that no member of the opposition asked her to name any user group?

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (Minister for Human Services) (15:10): I thank the honourable member for his question. My department has been working with individual user groups, who are the contracted organisations with which they are required to work. They obviously have a range of students, clients and the like that they then deal with, and so the approach has been that the department would work with those user groups to find alternatives. As I stated yesterday, and as the honourable member has repeated in his question today, my advice was that the final user group had reached an agreement to find alternative arrangements.

It is the responsibility of the user groups themselves to manage students and their clients going forward. Our contract is with the user groups, and we have reached those arrangements. It has been a process that has taken a considerable amount of time and effort. I think that my department has worked very well and in good faith with those groups to reach those arrangements and has performed its duty of care to them.

The PRESIDENT: The Hon. Mr Wortley, a supplementary.