Page 3659 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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time, user-friendly system to enable a timely response by managers to actual and potential risks and events.
The RiskMan project won the prestigious 2007 organisation and change management achievement award from the Australian Institute of Project Management, which is an outstanding achievement for ACT Health. This award follows the project’s success at the institute’s state and territory level awards, where it won two major awards—for the organisational change management project of the year and the community benefit project of the year for 2007. The award recognises that the project achieved a positive outcome and displayed innovation based on the international standard for project management.
Despite what those opposite continuously claim, the people of the ACT can be certain that the current government will continue to place quality and safety as its highest priority in the delivery of health care. This Stanhope Labor government will continue to fund initiatives to further improve the quality and safety of care provided to the people of the ACT by our public health services.
In the final minute that I have before I wrap up, I would just say that I anticipate that at least Mrs Burke, if nobody else on the other side speaks, will get up and talk about all the failings, catastrophes and tragedies that have occurred in the ACT health system, specifically within the Canberra Hospital. Some incidents have appeared within the media of late. While I accept that those issues are of concern, and I know that the minister accepts that those issues are of concern, as I have said before, incidents will occur in any hospital system—in any hospital system. We in this place should remember that in this town we have a world-class health system.
I commend the motion to the Assembly.
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (4.47): We have had the usual tame effort from Ms MacDonald. Here we have another Labor MLA in denial. It is incredible; we have had the Chief Minister stand up today but we have had a desperate speech from Ms MacDonald. She simply read from a prepared statement, delivered with little or no conviction or passion. Where was the passion in that speech? I do not know that she really believed half of what she was saying, which was a worry.
She did mention something about services which I have raised in this place before. I note that the place has gone very quiet. There was a pre-election commitment of $15 million for a state-of-the-art robotic surgical centre. With respect to that promise—and I do know this, Ms MacDonald; you will probably be really interested in this—people actually moved to Canberra to work at the Canberra Hospital. But what happened to that? I have never had any response to why that has never come off, and that is yet another broken election promise. That is a little bit sad, isn’t it?
We have seen today, in all of the attempts by anybody who has talked about health, a desperate bid to support an ailing health minister who is just not delivering in this critical area. In some very key areas, she is simply not across the job at all, and I will continue to say that. Her performance leaves a lot to be desired. It is not just me saying it; Labor voters are contacting me and telling me to stand by what I am
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