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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 12 Hansard (13 November) . . Page.. 4152 ..

MR HIRD (continuing):

When the committee was set up the Government, correctly, predicted a politically-driven finding. However, we did not predict the extraordinary turn of events, which was an unlikely alliance between the chair, Mr Berry, the proponent of public provision of hospital care, and the John James Memorial Hospital, the hospital which considered itself most at risk from the development of a new private hospital. The evidence of John James is even attached to the committee's report - the only submission given this status. Somewhere along the line - and it was very early on - this select committee lost the plot. In my view, the committee has not done its job. Its first recommendation clearly says it did not, as it was required to do in the terms of reference, inquire into the current provision of public and private beds. Rather, it suggested that the ACT Government should commission an independent review of public and private bed needs.

The majority report accuses the ACT Government of poor consultation. You will note the attachments to my dissenting report, which speaks for itself. To have consulted behind closed doors with potential vested interests in the development of a new hospital, as suggested in the majority report, would have been totally inappropriate. The ACT Government went through an open, well-publicised call for expressions of interest and the second stage of a select call for tenders, permitting the widest possible interest. The selection process was scrupulous. It was overseen by an independent probity auditor, to ensure an absolutely fair and even-handed approach to all interested parties. This approach would have been totally undermined if we had adopted the committee's suggestion of collusion with two major players in the ACT. I have expanded on these concerns in the dissenting report. I look forward to the Government's response to the majority report, which will show it for what it is - a thinly disguised political farce.

MS TUCKER (6.01): I, too, would like to thank John Cummins for his support in this committee. I agree that Mr Berry did take a highly political stand on this issue before the inquiry started. That did concern me to some degree. However, I want to make it quite clear that I joined this committee because I was interested in understanding better how these decisions are made and I was prepared to work within the committee system, even though there did appear to be some fairly strong sentiments expressed quite early. I will not accept Mr Hird's claim that bias has driven the committee's report. I was very careful that I was comfortable with the recommendations that came out of this inquiry. I did not start off with any bias at all. I went in there with an interest in understanding it better, as I said.

Mr Hird just said that the report, obviously, is biased because the submission of the John James Memorial Hospital was attached to the report. I think that is actually quite insulting to John Cummins. It was not attached for any reason other than that it was an opportunity to show clearly the arguments that were outlined. Health Care of Australia did not present a written submission. This did disadvantage them, in my view. They were invited to make a written submission, but they declined to do so. If they had given us more evidence, maybe there would have been something else that we would have said in this report. But the fact is that they did not. The evidence that was presented to the committee was solid and supported the recommendations that came out of this inquiry.

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