Page 3349 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 2010
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Mr Smyth: So Davidson was wrong. Podger was wrong.
MR STANHOPE: We were not wrong and nor were those that had a contrary view. They thought they would have been otherwise achieving the outcome we sought. We happened to disagree on that. That is the first issue. What is there in that? What is there in that scenario, that set of facts, that arrangement, that leads you to believe that because the minister was seeking to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Calvary hospital and was looking for the best way to do that, while at the same time creating a genuinely integrated public health system, something which we desperately need, she should resign? What absolute, arrant nonsense.
That is the strength of your case—that the accounting standard has changed and because she did not foresee the accounting standard would change she should resign. The basis of this motion is that because Ms Gallagher had not foreseen and was not advised that the accounting standard might change, she should resign. What absolute nonsense.
Then we can go to obstetrics, the other issue. The Minister for Health is asked to resign because she did not do something about something which she did not know about.
Mr Smyth interjecting—
Mr Hanson: She did know about it.
MR STANHOPE: Mr Hanson says, “She did know about it.” It is quite clear that the public record shows—
Mr Hanson: Why did she attack the doctors?
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hanson!
MR STANHOPE: The nub of this motion—
Mr Hanson: Why did she?
MR STANHOPE: is that the minister should resign, first in relation to Calvary—
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope, resume your seat for a moment. Stop the clock. Mr Smyth and Mr Hanson, the next one of you to interject across the floor will be warned. I want the minister to be heard in silence. Mr Stanhope.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. You can summarise the allegations, the claims, the basis upon which the Liberal Party is today proposing that the Minister for Health should resign, in this way: firstly, she did not foresee that the accounting standard would change—that is the capital sin that requires her to fall on her sword, that she did not foresee and was not advised that an accounting standard would change—and, secondly, that she did not do something about something which she did not know. That is the second challenge.
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