Page 1358 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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Despite the nay-sayers, despite those that simply will not accept the truth of the budgeting arrangements and the reality of budgeting treatments and accounting treatments, these are real issues for government. The simple dismissal, the wave or the flick of the hand to suggest that the budget implications for the accounting treatment are mere trifles, is simply a convenient attitude adopted by an opposition that are opposing for opposition’s sake, see political advantage in opposing the purchase of Calvary hospital and are pursuing an ideological, oppositional position—and it is an oppositional position; a position of opposition for opposition’s sake—because they see a political advantage.
There is no practical, objective reason for opposing the purchase of Calvary hospital when the government believes, through all the advice that it has available to it, that it is the best option in terms of public healthcare delivery and public hospital operation. And the owner of the building and the provider of the service wants the same outcome. One of the remarkable aspects of this is that it is something the government believes to be in the best interests of the territory and it is something on which the people with whom we are negotiating, the owners of the building, agree with us.
I find it remarkable that the government is desperately seeking to invest in public health through the purchase of what is currently a private hospital and the owner of that private hospital is desperately keen to sell it to us so that we can invest at the levels—and we are talking here, at least initially, up front and openly about the need for us to invest, over the next four or five years, up to $200 million in additional public hospital facilities and infrastructure in Canberra. We simply cannot do it with the current budget pressures, our significant deficit, the blows that the budget has taken, if we do not own the infrastructure and cannot invest in it in a way that does not take our budget further into the red. These are simple facts. Those are the facts of the matter.
In relation to this motion today, we understand the motivation of our political opponents in this place. Another story, more dissension, greater obstruction, continuing obstruction, opposition for opposition’s sake. But at some point, members of oppositions and members of crossbenches have to act responsibly. They have to allow governments to do the business of government. And part of the business of government in relation to a major commercial transaction such as this—accepting, of course, the deep public interest in the issue and the outcomes—is that governments must be permitted to negotiate in good faith.
We have a motion depicting confidential commercial discussions as “secret negotiations”. They were not. They were good faith negotiations where all the parties had agreed that it was in the best interests to pursue good faith negotiations to achieve an accepted outcome. And we have it here again. The government has entered again in good faith into negotiations with the Little Company of Mary. In negotiations at that initial meeting, it was agreed, and the archbishop of Canberra agreed, that those discussions or conversations would, appropriately, be held with a degree of confidence.
It was the government that said, “Well, yes, we understand that and we would support that.” But we made the point that we are subject to questioning, most particularly in
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