Page 2431 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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Ms Gallagher: Yet.
MR SMYTH: Well, there was never going to be one. If there is an appropriation, why isn’t it in this year’s budget?
Ms Gallagher: Because the deal hasn’t been made.
MR SMYTH: Oh, because the deal has not been made. That is not what was being said last week. Last week it was, “The transaction is unlikely to require legislative approval.” Now she has gone and found that she actually does have to do it. There have certainly been no funds appropriated to the department of health to fund the purchase of Calvary hospital.
Ms Gallagher: That’s right.
MR SMYTH: So what other articles are there? What other options are there? Option section 9A:
An appropriation for a capital injection may be stated to be made for, or partly for, the net cost of purchasing or developing of assets.
The provision of funds that can be used for capital work is authorised by paragraph 1(b) of section 8 of the FMA. I am not legally trained, although I do have some experience in preparing and using legislation. But, in my opinion, the key word in this is “may”. The use of “may” appears to provide some flexibility for the government, and it may have been this section that the minister was going to use. But the problem is that we have no idea of what is happening here. There is no case and there is no justification for what is going on. When the minister is asked what the benefits are, she cannot quantify them. When the minister is asked what savings there are, she cannot quantify them. When the minister is asked what is the value for money, the minister cannot quantify it.
Instead, we have got a conversation that apparently just floated up in a meeting last August about an ideological position. Let us face it: this is about an ideological position from the minister: “We would like to own Calvary.” Minister Corbell tried it two years before that and was soundly rebuffed by the community.
The only reason—the only reason—that we are having this discussion today is that the article appeared in the Canberra Times. This notion that “we will update you at the appropriate time” I suspect was going to be after they had cut the deal and there was no room for the Assembly to do anything because it would have subjected the government to countercharges from the Little Company of Mary. “We will talk to you when we have cut the deal.” That is what the minister is saying. There has been no discussion about the principle of this. There is no evidence to support it.
The good governance model that she refers to goes back to 2002 and it is interesting because the good governance model suggested things that the government could do to actually make the governance work better, and some of that included legislation—yes,
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