Page 2418 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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proposal. At this stage, that seems to be something that has been tacked on the end. I am not quite sure why, and I would like to understand that as well.
In closing, Mr Speaker, let me say that what we are asking for through this motion is clear accountability, scrutiny, a business case—and that it be presented to the Assembly for the Assembly to properly debate and understand what is going forward before the members in this place are asked or called on to make a decision on something that is going to have such great impact on the future of Canberra.
MS GALLAGHER (Molonglo—Treasurer, Minister for Health, Minister for Community Services and Minister for Women) (10.47): The government will not be supporting this motion. I think the opposition have written it in a way that ensures that we are unable to support it, and this is what we expect from the opposition. They are not here to be serious about contributing to the debate; they are here to play politics all the time. For those reasons the government will not be supporting the motion. I made it clear yesterday that, on this matter, I am happy to update members of the Assembly at the appropriate time about where negotiations have got to. Of course, the Assembly will have close scrutiny of this through legislation that will come about if this sale is to proceed.
Mr Hanson really has failed to understand that he is the opposition spokesperson on health. He actually thinks he is the health minister; he just does not have to do any of the work or have any of the responsibilities. But I find it absolutely unbelievable that the party of business, supposedly, would expect, through a commercial negotiation process, that we would be in a position to table in a public forum information that is currently subject to those negotiations. I find it absolutely unbelievable that they would be running this line that, with respect to commercial-in-confidence negotiations—and this is the normal way that business negotiations continue—they should be able to call for things such as a business case to come here whilst those negotiations are ongoing.
I have been very up-front that these negotiations have not reached a point where there is agreement around whether or not this proposed sale should go through. Not only does it have to come back here to the Assembly; it actually has to go to Rome and is subject to all of the church’s processes as well. So there are quite a number of steps that need to be followed. We are not at that point yet. But when the negotiations reach the point where those parties have either reached agreement—and essentially it will be around price—or failed to reach agreement, that will be the point in time where more information will be able to be made available.
That is not excluding the Assembly. The Assembly is not the government. The government has carriage of this issue in terms of moving the negotiations to a certain point. The Assembly has a particular role, and we are not at that point in time yet. In terms of—
Mr Seselja: When were you planning on sharing that with the community?
MS GALLAGHER: Mr Seselja interjects, “When were you planning on informing the community?” I would have informed the community at a time when there was (1)
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