Page 4956 - Week 13 - Thursday, 12 November 2009
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In that context, there was a broad-ranging discussion about the difficulties that the ACT government faces in the context of its billion-dollar proposal to continue to fund—
Mr Hanson: Mr Speaker—
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Stanhope! Stop the clock, please.
Mr Hanson: Mr Speaker, the question was specifically about whether the Chief Minister or the minister for health raised the issue of a third hospital being built in competition with Calvary. The Chief Minister has not got to that point.
MR SPEAKER: Chief Minister, could you come to the question in your remaining 17 seconds.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you. I was seeking to provide a full answer, but there is no misunderstanding that we discussed the full range of issues and considerations that the ACT government has taken into account in coming to the position it has come to around the desirability of us owning and operating both of our public hospitals and the difficulties we faced in investing in infrastructure which we did not own. (Time expired.)
MR SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mrs Dunne?
MRS DUNNE: Chief Minister, did you or the Deputy Chief Minister at any stage intimate to Archbishop Coleridge and Bishop Power that the ACT government might respond aggressively to a save the hospital campaign, and did you or the Deputy Chief Minister keep a record of that meeting afterwards?
MR STANHOPE: The answer to the first question is no. On behalf of myself, the answer to the second question is no, but I cannot, of course, speak for the Minister for Health. The meeting was cordial and productive, as you would expect, and is always the case with meetings that I hold, most particularly with an archbishop and a bishop. The meeting was respectful; the meeting was cordial; the meeting was professional; the meeting was not aggressive. There were no threats.
The Minister for Health has responded to each of those rather outrageous allegations by Ms Angela Shanahan. I think if you were to ask Archbishop Coleridge, or, indeed, Bishop Power of their recollections of the meetings, you would ask Archbishop Coleridge and Bishop Power whether they had any concerns with any aspects of the meeting or the tone of the meeting or my demeanour or that of the Minister for Health, and I am sure you would be satisfied with the answer that I have just given as being the truth and the absolute, unequivocal truth.
Children—kinship carers
MS HUNTER: My question is to the minister for children and young people. Minister, my question is again about kinship carers. In question time on Tuesday this
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