Commenting on Your views: on free land, park lands and heritage

Why do we continue to read commentary on the plan for the new WCH? The designated site is the only safe, structurally realistic and financially responsible option.

The hospital must be located in the RAH precinct. The neglected and inaccessible eastern strip of the Kate Cocks Park and the Barracks will be unavoidably lost, but the gaol will be preserved and there will be a net increase in accessible park lands.

The threat of an impact on the National Heritage status of the park lands is insubstantial, and, in any event, would not be ratified by the Minister for the Environment in a Labor Government.

The Government’s plans for the new hospital have been codified in legislation, and must now proceed expeditiously for the sake of the health of our women and children. – Warren Jones

If the Malinauskas government proceeds with a WCH on the Police Barracks, park lands site, it has broken its pre election promises for the park lands and heritage. Make no mistake, this is an outrageous land grab.

You have a regular correspondent who claims, amongst other things, that this site is the only safe, structurally and financially responsible option. That is misleading and false.

It is a plan and site that has been hatched in under 12 months. Like the RAH, which was a design and build shambles – constant design changes, horrendous overruns.

It is ‘spin’ to suggest that the planned hospital will result in a net park land gain. Hospitals, parking lots, expand; they take more and more land, not less. Don’t be deceived, there are better alternatives. – Malcolm Dixon

Commenting on the story: Govt loan scheme to address flammable cladding on apartment towers

Rather than these band-aids, why not target the problem. These “claddings” did not magically appear – a builder/developer put them there, and they were chosen for profit.

The builders are therefore culpable. Fine them and use the proceeds to fix the issue, or demand that they fix the problems they have caused. – Robert Alexander

So, the developers / builders saved money by buying cheap cladding that was not up to code, and now, the owners and indirectly, taxpayers, have to clean up their obligations?

What about the profits the developers made in specifying this dangerous, imported cladding? Surely the law states that defective building work needs to be remediated by those responsible for the problem, and the developers would have had insurance for such contingencies too, right?

Brings to mind the old saying “Privatise the profits, socialise the losses”. – David King

The government is doing the right thing in organising these loans but why were the panels allowed to be used in the first place? Somebody approved them, so perhaps they should be made liable to replace them? – David Fickling