Page 746 - Week 02 - Thursday, 25 February 2010
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MR HARGREAVES: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. My supplementary question is to the Minister for Health. Is the minister aware of the page number of the Canberra Times from which the questions from the opposition are derived?
Mr Hanson: A point of order, Mr Speaker: I raised this issue—
MR SPEAKER: The question is out of order. A supplementary question, Mr Hanson?
MR HANSON: Yes. Minister, do you hold the view that the 10-year war is just a lot of mud-slinging with no substantiation?
MS GALLAGHER: That is a difficult question for me to answer. I think the tensions that exist, that I have been talking about, exist between a professional group. I am not a member of that professional group. There may be some very legitimate reasons for the tensions that exist. The mud-slinging that I was referring to was the allegations, the one-sided allegations, that were raised in the media last Tuesday. At that point in time, and still today—
Mr Hanson: How did you know they were one-sided if you didn’t know anything about it?
MS GALLAGHER: Because there were allegations made and the other side of the story was not put, Mr Hanson. It is pretty clear that they were one-sided allegations. Anyone watching the news would have seen that.
Mr Smyth: Enlighten us with the other side of the story.
MS GALLAGHER: The other side of the story will come out. It will come out in time, in an appropriate way, under the reviews that we have commissioned, and that is entirely appropriate. And the mud-slinging that I was referring to related to allegations about clinical standards, safety, relationships between midwives and doctors—all of which I still believe are mud-slinging allegations because I have not seen anyone or anything that would confirm that there are concerns around those areas.
Health system—Canberra Hospital
MRS DUNNE: My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, you stated in this place that when doctors wrote to you with serious concerns about the work environment at the Canberra Hospital you wrote back and asked them to expand on their concerns. Given your knowledge of the 10-year war, why did you need doctors to expand on their statements? Why did you not immediately acknowledge to the doctors your understanding of the 10-year war?
MS GALLAGHER: Well, they did not write to me about serious concerns.
Mr Hanson: They did. You just didn’t interpret it that way.
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