Page 1364 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
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if it is small bits, we can put it here and there. But, if it is $30 million, which I do not think is a particularly small amount of money, that is okay. It will be interesting to see whether the analysis that the minister will, or should, table tomorrow of her idea of “everything is on the table” was actually completed. And I will go back and I will review her words earlier this year where she said that and see what she actually said to the place: “Everything is on the table.” But, yet again, one option is presented—only one option. And it is this dogmatic approach, this dog with a bone sort of approach—“I’m going to get my way, no matter what I have to do”—that worries me.
We, of course, do not have any analysis that will prove health outcomes in the ACT. There is absolutely no analysis from the health minister. It is interesting that it seems to be run out of Treasury. The health minister is not up to it so the Treasurer is doing it. We have got the Chief Minister riding shotgun, saying things like, “We want to improve health in the ACT,” but there is no improvement to the delivery of health services. That argument is just shot to pieces. That is—
Ms Gallagher: So where do you put the beds? Where do you put your extra services—in a building that does not exist? You have got to build it.
MR SMYTH: You have not made the case. The minister interjects: “Where will you put the beds? How will you deliver the services?” So I assume that will be in the analysis tomorrow that we will get; that this will show us how this will improve health services in the ACT. When we get those documents tomorrow afternoon, what we will have is an analysis of how the government acquiring Calvary will improve health services in the ACT. If it is not there then the health minister has failed. If it is not there, it shows the health minister is not doing her job. If it is not there, it shows the health minister is lazy. If it is not there, it shows that the commitment that she gave to this place that all options were on the table was not met. It will show that their promise to consider everything was not done.
Yet again we come back to one option—“one option Katy”, “one trick Katy”. Just one option—that is all she puts forward on each occasion. Where is the discussion about the future of health and how it can be better delivered with the money that is at stake?
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (12.09): I thank Mr Hanson for bringing forward this matter today. Unlike the government, we in the Canberra Liberals believe that this is a matter of utmost importance to the community in the ACT and that the people in the ACT need to have some idea of what the government is planning to do with their money.
We have seen the Minister for Health, the Treasurer, floundering over this issue for a number of months now, starting when it became publicly known back in April. Hand on heart, she was saying: “This is the only way that we can progress this matter. The issue is about the bottom line. The issue is about where the money goes and who owns the asset at the end of the time.”
As a number of people have pointed out, if this is the issue there are myriad accounting processes that can be adopted short of taking over the hospital in a hostile takeover.
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