Page 3600 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 18 August 2010
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Canberra Hospital—staff
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (9.09): Mr Speaker, I will just quickly respond to what Mr Hargreaves said. Of course, we have the greatest respect for the doctors, nurses, midwives, other clinical staff and the administrative staff at the Canberra Hospital and more broadly across ACT Health. I think that that would be the unanimous view of all sides of this chamber, and we give them our absolute support. But it is my responsibility and the opposition’s responsibility to hold the government to account and to thereby identify where things are going wrong in the health system and point that out.
If you talk about supporting doctors, if you talk about supporting nurses, when doctors, midwives and nurses make complaints, you then listen to those complaints. You then address them fairly. You do not call it mud-slinging. You do call it doctor politics. That is half the problem that we have had here—that is, instead of the minister taking those reports that she had on face value, and saying, “I’ve had some reports. I will investigate them. They may be valid, and if they are, we’ll get to the bottom of it and we’ll address them,” her response was to attack the people that made the complaints.
I agree with your sentiment 100 per cent, Mr Hargreaves, but I will continue to hold this government to account. It is this health minister who has actually been the one who has attacked the hospital staff and the obstetricians, not me.
Kytherian Brotherhood of Canberra and District Inc
Tandem Respite Inc
MR COE (Ginninderra) (9.11): I would like to add my support to the Kytherian Brotherhood of Canberra and District Inc, as the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Seselja, spoke about earlier. I would also like to acknowledge that John Kalokerinos is the President of the Kytherian Brotherhood of Canberra and District.
I would now like to pay tribute to a very special community group which helps so many people in the ACT and region—that is, Tandem. Tandem do a superb job and I think are certainly worthy of recognition here today. They provide respite, personal care and other support services to hundreds of people in Canberra—young people, people with a disability, people living with mental illness, perhaps frail or older people and their families. They really are a superb organisation.
Their mission is to promote independence and quality of life through respite, personal care and social inclusion. Their vision is to contribute to the ACT community by working in tandem with individuals and their families. Their values include words such as passionate, persevering and professional, creative and caring, respectful and responsive, active and accountable.
I went to the opening of their new facility in the Blaxland Centre, and it is a superb centre. I also went to the launch of the organisation last year. I would like to give a plug to their board members: the President, Ron Kingsbury, the Vice President, Peter Gordon, the Secretary and Public Officer, Karen Noble, the Treasurer, Cath Sutton,
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