Page 586 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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not get it done. They could not get it through the process. The failure to take responsibility for what has been a monumental stuff-up, I think, is breathtaking. We see, over and over and over again from this minister, that she will not take responsibility. Who else do you blame? I am sure there are others that she could blame. What about Mr Berry and Mr Hargreaves? They had a few things to say about it. They raised concerns about the deal. Are they to blame? Is, indeed, Mr Hargreaves to blame for daring to speak out in his opposition to this deal?
There is any number of culprits, but the minister never looks at her role and whether or not this was something that she was ever going to be able to achieve. Did she look at other options or did she just blindly pursue something without any thought for what might happen if she could not get the deal done? That is where we are at the moment, Mr Speaker. Ms Gallagher says no-one disputed the analysis. Mr Smyth has laid out a whole list of people who disputed the analysis. There is any number of individuals. We have talked about Sinclair Davidson, Tony Harris, Terry Dwyer and Andrew Podger.
If someone like Tony Harris, a former New South Wales Auditor-General, is raising concerns, I think that is something we take seriously. Ms Gallagher obviously does not. When the opportunity was given for the Auditor-General to scrutinise this, the Labor Party and the Greens did not support that. The Labor Party and the Greens would not support that. The minister had the opportunity for some independent scrutiny of the deal and she was not prepared to go through the process.
That suggests that it is not something she thought would stand up to scrutiny. If she thought it would actually stand up to scrutiny, to serious scrutiny, what would be the problem with the Auditor-General looking at it? There would be nothing. The only reason you would not want the Auditor-General to look at it is because the Auditor-General might not agree with your conclusion. The Auditor-General may not agree with your analysis.
We will never know. We will never know because the Labor Party and the Greens did not want that scrutiny. They were not prepared to allow that scrutiny. We were just meant to take this minister’s word for it. We see how she has handled so many areas of her portfolio and she says to us, “No, take my word for it.” Frankly, we do not.
Mr Speaker, we do need to go back to the process. The secretive nature of the way this was handled was one of the major flaws. Before the election Ms Gallagher said that all the plans were on the table. That was not true. This was, I would think, a pretty significant plan in relation to health in the ACT. Agree with it or not agree with it, it is significant; it is noteworthy. It is something that people have a right to know about before an election, but it was kept secret. It was only made public through a leak. It was not made public because even after the election the government went out and made an announcement. It was kept secret and it was only made public through a leak. It was made public, despite what the government wanted.
We have seen a pattern of this from Ms Gallagher, because it was Ms Gallagher before the 2004 election who said, “No school closures.” So before 2004, no school closures; before 2008, secret plan for Calvary, but never being up-front with the
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