Page 5179 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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What did the Greens say? “No.” And yet, now that the pressure is on, now that decision-making time is here, now that the Greens have woken up to the fact that it is more than just the sale of a hospital, and that, indeed, a block of land with a building on it called Clare Holland House is part of the deal, here they are, catching up. Here they are, saying, “We’re concerned.” Here they are, saying, “We will hold the government to account,” but this is just a sham. (Time expired.)
Ms Gallagher: We missed you, Brendan. We missed you last week.
MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Smyth, during your intervention you used the phrase, as I recall, “arse-covering motion”. Based on precedent in this place, which has also been applied to my good self, I believe that is unparliamentary language and I would invite you to withdraw it.
Mr Smyth: Being in good company with yourself, Mr Speaker, I withdraw.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you.
Debate interrupted in accordance with standing order 74 and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for a later hour.
Sitting suspended from 12.32 to 2 pm.
Questions without notice
Hospitals—Calvary Public Hospital and Clare Holland House
MR SESELJA: My question is to the Minister for Health. I refer to a meeting on 6 April this year attended by you, the Chief Minister, Archbishop Mark Coleridge and Bishop Pat Power to discuss the sale of Calvary hospital. The Chief Minister advised the Assembly on 12 November that there was no-one from the ACT government taking minutes, nor did he take notes of what was discussed.
Minister, did you take notes of what issues were discussed? If so, do these notes indicate whether you or the Chief Minister suggested in any way cutting funding or services or infrastructure, at that meeting, if the Little Company of Mary continued to own Calvary hospital?
MS GALLAGHER: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. No, I did not take any notes at that meeting either, but I have sighted the minutes that were actually put together by Martin Laverty from Catholic Health Australia. The actual record of the meeting, which was the reflections on what people had said, shows no indication of any threats from any participant in that meeting at all about future funding or indeed future decisions around Calvary Public Hospital.
There is a section at the bottom of that record of notes—all I can call them is contemporaneous notes of a meeting that was held by one person—with some personal reflections on where to from here by the minute-taker, or by the note-taker because they were not minutes. I have only seen these notes subsequent to the article that appeared in the Australian in, I think, late October.
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