Page 3337 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 2010
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effectively accounted for all money spent, forgone, invested or borrowed on behalf of the territory? Did the minister’s conduct adversely affect the ability of other MLAs or public officials to perform their duties? Has the minister acted responsively in the performance of her public duties? Has the minister acted honestly and respectfully towards all MLAs, public officials and the public? These tests relate directly to identified conduct. Whilst for some of them a standard needs to sit alongside the test—for example, the test of due diligence and at what point we can say this has been achieved—for the most part, they can operate as stand-alone tests.
The next issue is: how do we assess policy decisions and general poor performance as opposed to identified misconduct, such as the inappropriate use of public funds? This is a much more difficult question and requires a broader consideration about the level of direction the Assembly should exercise over the executive.
Naturally, we all have different views on different policy matters, and outcomes would be different if a different person or party were making the decisions. The question is how we assess misconduct or ineptitude as opposed to policy differences. It is not appropriate to express no confidence in a minister for a policy difference—only for a significant error. It is also not appropriate to express no confidence in a minister simply because, with the benefit of hindsight, things have not worked out as we would have liked when there are many factors beyond their control. As a parliamentary Assembly we need to offer more than “we just don’t like what happened”. To further encourage and improve our system, we need to carefully explain why we think something, how we have arrived at the decision and provide objective tests that can be followed and improved upon in the future.
Turning to the substantive issues—firstly, Calvary—I think it is fair to say on the issue of Calvary that there have been three different policy positions in this chamber. It has been a long and arduous process, as you would expect the possible purchase by a government of a privately owned hospital to be. Recent news about the draft accounting standards means that the government does not have to buy the hospital to represent investment in Calvary’s infrastructure on the government’s books. The minister did not seek to hide this news nor take inappropriate action because of it. In fact, she called off the current deal because of it, as was appropriate to do.
To debate the matter of Calvary with the seriousness it deserves, the government should have prosecuted the facts about the Auditor-General’s findings more openly from the beginning, because that is the heart or a significant part of the issue with Calvary and why the government needed to own it. The Auditor-General had previously found that, because there was a private and public hospital operating within the same facility and poor accounting procedures were being used, the public taxpayer dollars were essentially being used to subsidise the private hospital. That is, of course, unacceptable.
Since then, the minister has said that Calvary has tried to change its systems so that the accounting is more accurate and better reflects the divide between the two parts of the hospital, thus facilitating greater transparency and accountability. But the minister did say during estimates that this has led to a lower level of throughput and efficiency. The Greens believe the issue of having a public and private hospital within the same facility stills needs to be sorted out.
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