Page 2311 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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I have raised the issues with her. She said she has looked into the matter. That is good. Something good has come out of this public debate. Nurses were not getting anywhere trying to raise the issues. At paragraph (5) of her amendment, she says that I have continuously talked down the ACT public health system and the health professionals who work within it. That is scurrilous. That is really off the mark. The minister will say, “Every time you talk about the administration, you are talking about nursing staff.” I am talking about the top administration—the people who can do something about it. If I am talking about them and they feel under pressure, that is not my problem. I have to take this debate somewhere to a point where somebody is going to listen to those people doing it tough.
If we cannot do stuff, let us just say so. But let us not try and obfuscate or duckshove—use any other cliche you want to. As Mr Stefaniak has said, let us really listen to those people on the front line who do not lie. They do not lie, minister. Otherwise, why would they come to me and why would I stand in this place putting my reputation on the line? But it is not about my reputation. This is about the reputation and the wellbeing of nurses, doctors and allied health professionals right across our public health system. More importantly, it is to do with the patients and the care of those patients. We as an administration are charged to watch over that. If we are not doing that to the best of our ability, I will stand here every day of the week if I have to. I will cry from the rooftops to say, “Fix the system. Let’s do what we can do.”
I know that time and again the minister has said that there is more work to do. I applaud that. I have never said that she has always said that things are perfect. I just do not appreciate her saying things that are simply not true in terms of misinformation. What that does is cast a slur on the many people who have contacted me. It casts a slur upon them. How is the minister making those people feel? She is now talking down our health professionals, and that is sad.
What the minister did in her speech was simply decry everything I have said, taking it very personally. Obviously, it has hit some nerves. It got a reaction. That is what it was intended to do. Making this matter very public was intended to get a reaction—and ultimately to get some action. Mr Stefaniak said that taking matters personally is not going to solve anything.
In the cold light of day, the minister needs to read through everything I have said. Certainly she can take me to task on areas if she believes that I have done something wrong. But, similarly, she needs to listen to nurses and health professionals—and doctors and the like—who are saying that there are problems in the system. It is no good avoiding it, ignoring it and being in denial. The aim of my motion today was to put this debate on the public record.
The health minister should heed what I am trying to do here. I could simply sit back and do nothing at all. Perhaps that is what she does not really like: the fact that I am so active and proactive—being out there and trying to do what I can to agitate. Yes, I would use that word; I do. I will agitate to make sure that we get a system that can be run as properly as possible. Hospitals are difficult beasts to manage; I do not deny that. But when we come down to the basic thing of not having general day-to-day supplies
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