Page 167 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2008
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working families; you do not care about the people in mortgage stress; you do not care about lower income earners. We know you do not. We know it is not your constituency. We know you do not care about them.
Mr Stefaniak: Stop your grizzling.
MR STANHOPE: Your derision is now in the face of an attempt to reduce inflation, a necessary attempt to rein in what threatens to be a rampaging burst of inflation and further interest rate rises. I just can’t believe the derision with which the Liberal Party is treating the implications and effects of the increase in interest rates. The Reserve Bank has forecast a further rate rise within the next four weeks, and you do not care. It is remarkable. (Time expired.)
Hospitals—pay parking
MRS DUNNE: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, during question time yesterday, the Chief Minister said that we—the opposition and the community—could “take the word of the minister … publicly expressed, on the public record, as expressing the government’s position”.
Minister, on 13 December 2006, when discussing the government’s position on pay parking at the hospital, you publicly expressed, on the public record, that there was no way you were walking away from pay parking. Barely six months later, the Chief Minister stated the government’s position on hospital pay parking—publicly expressed, on the public record—as follows:
… the current pay parking arrangements will cease operation at the Canberra … and Calvary hospital today with effect from 9.00 pm …
That was on 25 May 2007. Minister, how do you reconcile the conflict between your statement of the government’s position and the Chief Minister’s statement of the government’s position, both publicly expressed, both on the public record?
MS GALLAGHER: Both statements are correct, because the government changed its position on pay parking.
Mr Seselja: You said you wouldn’t. You are projecting into the future again, Katy.
MS GALLAGHER: At the time that statement was made—I did not hear the date that you read from, but I presume it is correct—the government’s policy was to introduce pay parking at the Canberra and Calvary hospitals.
Mr Smyth: So you are only as good as your word.
MS GALLAGHER: We did that. Then we had a whole range of feedback and we had a whole range of complaints.
Opposition members interjecting—
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