Page 5176 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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it is a motion that is meaningless. What we have is a party, the Greens, now attempting to justify what they will do when the vote comes up for the purchase of Calvary hospital and the sale of Clare Holland House.
Despite what Ms Bresnan said at the start of her speech, that the Greens believe that public health facilities should be in the control of the government, they will sell a public health facility. That is what is going to occur; have no doubt about it. And the sham continues with the amendment that Ms Bresnan moves to her own motion, requesting that the Minister for Health table a report in the Assembly outlining what issues were raised by the community. Where is the motion from the Greens demanding that the government comply with their own guide to engaging with the community? On page 6 it says:
It is strongly recommended that the absolute minimum for any community engagement activity be six weeks.
In fact, it was six weeks and a day, so I guess that qualifies. But the paragraph goes on to say:
For large projects, policies and strategies seeking comprehensive feedback, twelve weeks is recommended.
Is the purchase of Calvary and the sale of Clare Holland House a large project? I would have thought it was. Is it something that deserves comprehensive community feedback? Absolutely. Yet we went for the minimum.
This is a government who said after the election: “We’ve learnt. We’re going to set up a better process for consulting with the community.” But when you get to the first major project from the government, they go back to their old ways—six weeks of consultation. It is interesting, because their own community consultation manual also says:
The timing of any engagement activity is crucial to its success.
True words. It goes on to say:
Activities undertaken at inappropriate times—
and here is the definition of inappropriate times—
(eg during school holidays or over the Christmas/New Year period) or within extremely short timeframes (eg less than 6 weeks) are counterproductive and minimise the ability of many to participate.
And what did we have? We had a project that was six weeks and a day, but indeed the first two weeks of the project, according to the Assembly calendar, coincided with the school holidays. So not only do we run the minimum, but we then breach the manual of community engagement by running it in a period which, as the government’s own document says, will minimise people’s ability to be engaged.
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