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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-13 Daily Xml
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GLENSIDE HOSPITAL REDEVELOPMENT

Mr PISONI (Unley) (15:47): I recently spoke in this house about the government listening post I attended at the Burnside Town Hall on 3 October. As members will recall, it was a listening post set up by the government to consult with residents and those who had an interest in mental health. Of course, the listening event was scheduled to start at 6pm, and 6pm is a very difficult time for people. Most people, even younger members of the community without children, are at work. Senior citizens are probably at home and they can probably attend a function at 6 o'clock, but certainly for anyone with a family it is a difficult time.

They are normally picking up their child from child care, cooking their meal, or helping them with their homework. I believe that this was a deliberate tactic to reduce the numbers of people who attended this so-called 'listening post', but then again maybe I was wrong. I attended the second listening event on 23 October. Certainly at that listening post, there was no increase in consultation. Again, there was no appearance by the minister.

What was in evidence was more indoctrination (described as consultation) and an orchestrated divide and rule agenda where people were divided into small groups rather than being allowed to speak in the public forum that they had expected. There was a large contingent of health department staff and ministerial advisers and even—get this, Mr Speaker—police presence. There was a policeman at the door and he was on duty, because I asked him. I wonder what the danger was for departmental staff and ministerial advisers. I think I was the youngest person at that function. Sorry, the member for Sturt, Christopher Pyne, was there. He is a couple of years younger than I, so he was the youngest person at that function.

I guarantee to the minister that there was no risk to public safety at this meeting. So, the minister was not present and the public servants were left with the hard sell of this unpopular plan to deliver the news that despite this being a consultation process—supposedly—the plan was non-negotiable. These words came from the public servants. The plan for the sell-off of land was non-negotiable. The open space had to be sold off to pay for the hospital facility upgrade, otherwise (we were told) there would not be money to do it. This is at a time when the budget is 50 per cent bigger—$4 billion bigger—than it was five years ago, and we are told that the government does not have $100 million to upgrade the mental health facilities at Glenside without selling land.

I was asked the other day, 'What about Goodwood orphanage? When the Liberal Party was in office it sold Goodwood orphanage.' That is exactly right. We did do that and it is still there as open space. It was sold to the council. The residents were given the option. There was a huge consultation process, the outcome of which was that the residents wanted it to continue as open space so the council was offered a deal. That was at a time when the former Liberal government was fixing the mess left by premier Bannon after the State Bank mess when we did not have money. We had a budget smaller than $8 billion yet we managed to secure an outcome that left open space there. A deal has already been done at Glenside. If one lives in the inner suburbs one will understand that one of the biggest concerns of those living in the inner suburbs is access to open space. Geographically, the electorate of Unley is the smallest electorate in South Australia.

Ms Breuer interjecting:

Mr PISONI: And the member for Giles has the biggest electorate, followed by the member for Stuart, I believe.

Mr Hanna interjecting:

Mr PISONI: Unley is densely populated and it has only 2 per cent open space. It is not acceptable for this government to say to the people who live within the vicinity of Glenside that they will pay for this development by a reduction in their lifestyle, open space and facilities for a statewide facility. I concede that there is a statewide benefit for this development, but why should the residents of Glenside be forced to pay the price disproportionately to other members of the community?

Time expired.

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