Page 5206 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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terms of their understanding of the financial analysis. Can I just inform the Assembly that no-one has been able to dispute the financial analysis. They have disagreed with it; they have said they think it is trivial; they have said they think these are simple accounting matters that can be dealt with. But nobody has been able to dispute the Treasury financial analysis which, when you look at it from a balance sheet point of view, from our operating impact and from our cash position, overall, is the best way forward in economic terms, in terms of our entire budget, not looking at our cash—
Mr Hanson: Why don’t you send it to the Auditor-General then?
MS GALLAGHER: I am very interested that the position the Liberal Party have taken now is that the only measure that they are going to look at in the future is the cash position of the territory. They are not going to care about our assets. They are not going to care about our bottom line. That is what you have said.
Mr Hanson: If it was a greenfield site—
MS GALLAGHER: Your position as outlined on Calvary indicates that you do not care about the bottom line of the territory and you do not care about our balance sheet. What you care about is the cash, and that is the only indicator that you will be looking at in the future to measure whether or not something stacks up. That is what Jeremy Hanson is saying. And you are wrong; you keep using the $160 million term, which is wrong, and you know it. You had the financial briefing. In net present value terms, it is $110 million, and you have to look at that, because it is over 20 years. We have already discussed this in the Treasury briefing, but you keep using $160 million because it benefits your argument.
Mr Hanson: Yes, because they are in your tables, they are in the Treasury analysis.
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, but then the column that runs alongside it, Mr Hanson, in the same table, it indicates it is $110 million in net present value terms. That is the actual measure you need to use if you are going to use cash as the indicator to decide whether this stacks up or does not stack up on. It is in exactly the same table. But anyway, you use it because it supports your argument. But we now know that in estimates next year, whether or not the budget is a good or bad thing for the territory, it will be measured on the impact on our cash. It will not be measured on our balance sheet or the impact on our operating result.
Mr Hanson: We are talking about this proposal.
MS GALLAGHER: That is the position you have taken, because what you are saying is you want the current arrangements to continue. Despite the fact that LCM Health Care do not want to be there any more and despite the fact that they are a willing participant in the sale, you want to hold them and lock them into the hospital and then you want to give the $200 million from our operating accounts to finance a north-side hospital. But then, when they actually want to consolidate at the hospice, you are not going to let them do that because that is not popular. Opposition for opposition’s sake. Your position is hypocritical; it does not add up.
Mr Smyth: Why?
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