Page 2436 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 17 June 2009
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that comes with the hospital being run by the Little Company of Mary. They say to me that Calvary Hospital provides a service that they appreciate and that seems to them to be substantially better than the service that they get from the Canberra Hospital. I do not know what the vital X factor is, but the people of the ACT appreciate what happens at Calvary hospital and they appreciate that the service they get from Calvary hospital is a great service. They do not want to see it go backwards.
There are no guarantees here. The minister says that nothing will change. But if nothing will change, why are we proposing to spend a large amount of taxpayers’ money on this process? The government has a responsibility to the people of the ACT and, through this Assembly to the ACT, to account for the reasons why they should do this and put forward the case. That is why I propose to move an amendment to Ms Bresnan’s amendment.
I take Ms Bresnan’s point that perhaps subparagraph (a) could be seen as somewhat confrontationist. I know that the Greens have a different approach to debate and discussion in this place. They think, for better or worse, that sometimes the robust nature of the debate is unedifying, and sometimes it is. Yesterday was pretty unedifying; that is true.
I can see that there may be matters of concern about some of the language in paragraph 1. But the real crux of this lies in paragraph 2. That paragraph calls on the government at an appropriate time—not today; at an appropriate time—not only to develop the business case, but to provide any alternative action. As the minister said, this sale may not go through. If the sale does not go through, there needs to be a plan B. Paragraph 2 calls on the government to conduct extensive consultation. I do not see that in the words that come from Ms Bresnan. Ms Bresnan’s words are somewhat weak on that. It also calls on the government to provide the business case, the alternative course of action and the results of the community consultation to the Assembly at an appropriate time and also to present an appropriation bill. This was done because when this motion was being drafted and being discussed, it was unclear what the minister was going to do to expedite the sale, if the sale goes ahead.
This motion brought today is a motion that requires that there be full disclosure to the ACT community about the process. The minister is saying, “We had confidential negotiations because Calvary asked for it.” Yes, I appreciate that, but for some little time, nearly two years before this became an issue, the minister had been talking about her $1 billion infrastructure plan for the development of the health system in the ACT. At no stage was there even a hint that an integral part of that development would have to be a look at the ownership of Calvary hospital.
At no time did this minister or the Chief Minister ever address the issue of ownership. When they said at election time that all their plans were on the table, they lied to the community, because one of their plans was not on the table. Whatever the reasons are that they want to own Calvary hospital, and they may be good reasons, they need to take the community with them. When they said that all their plans were on the table, at no stage did they intimate that part of their plans included the change of ownership of Calvary hospital.
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