Page 1635 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 1 April 2009
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been listening to the minister for all that time, and Mr Hanson was not listening to her today; he was too busy interrupting her at every stage of the game.
Regarding the terms of reference of the previous inquiry, I think that Mr Doszpot has been reading from another set of terms of reference and another set of recommendations. For Mr Hanson’s information, I was on the steering committee of the Charnwood community health co-op and then became its patron, as did Mrs Dunne and other members in this place. I can recall Mrs Dunne turning up to at least three or four of those early morning meetings. I think I attended practically all of them, but I know Mrs Dunne did, in fact, turn up to three or four of them. She participated in that committee, and we all tried to participate in that committee to the best of our ability, and 7 o’clock is a bit of a challenge.
As the minister has just pointed out, the difficulty with this whole issue is that people are talking about this as though it is an ACT and Assembly responsibility when, in fact, general practitioners are a federal responsibility. As you know, I did support the Charnwood co-op in their application for funds to both the federal government and the ACT government and also to the corporate sector. In fact, it is worth noting that, through my communication with the Canberra Labor Club, $15,000 was provided to this organisation to do some initial work on the feasibility. Then $50,000 from the ACT government was also supplied to them for feasibility studies. I recall that, and I thank Mrs Dunne for highlighting my role in the complicated process that has taken place and the fruits that my work yielded in that time.
There seems to be a flagrant lack of consistency in the arguments espoused in this place by those opposite. Last week we had Mr Hanson saying that if the minister’s response to the closure of yet another family GP practice is to say that all we can do is to seek corporate goodwill then that is not enough. Now he is saying that we should actually amend my motion to knock out the bit that calls on the minister to do something. It just does not make sense.
Now we have got Mr Hanson complimenting the government on the fast and efficient way in which they have provided a response that is not confined to this motion but also has taken the form of a task force. But, of course, he went further and said that the government have failed to take responsibility for this issue and failed to come up with an adequate response. Lo and behold, this week he seeks to amend the motion, as I said, and remove the second point. He is effectively amending the motion so that the Assembly does not investigate legislative responses aimed at avoiding a repeat of the Kippax family centre abrupt closure. Another example, I am afraid, Mr Speaker, of opposing for opposition’s sake; blocking the government from ever making, meaningful, positive changes for the people of the ACT.
I think the opposition are very confusing and inconsistent in their approach. We have seen a number of occasions last week and this week when an opposition which calls for small government is calling on the government to intervene in business and to actually rescue businesses over and over again. As we know, all we have seen from those opposite since they have come into this place has been the continual practice of opposing for opposition’s sake.
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