Page 3674 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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Mr Hanson: The Liberal government did not try and buy it.
MR STANHOPE: We have this remarkable position—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, that is the last time I will call your name. Understand me?
MR STANHOPE: We have this remarkable—
MR ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Chief Minister, please sit down. Mr Hanson, there is a note here saying you are on a warning. I suggest that you have a good look at the standing orders. I am not going to put up with it. If you do not desist immediately, next time I call you, I will call you and name you under the standing orders. Please do not push me.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. We just see this sort of reflexive, “Oh, we always knew. We always knew that the accounting standard was not appropriate.” The accounting standard was drafted in April 2010, post the entire debate, post your errant opposition to this particular position, a position designed by the government, at the request essentially of the Little Company of Mary, to purchase the hospital they own so that they could invest in additional hospital facilities and we could fulfil what I think every government since 1989 sought to achieve—namely, a truly integrated public hospital network in the ACT.
That is what we were seeking to do. For you to come in here today and posture as you have been over the last couple of weeks in relation to this, saying, “We always knew and we had this sterling advice from these leading citizens around the town,” denies the fact that every single one of them put a different position in relation to what they thought the government might do.
There was no unified position. There was never a suggestion that the accounting standard did not apply. There was never a suggestion that the advice in relation to the accounting standard was wrong. At no stage did you ever in the debate in relation to this issue insist that the accounting standard that we were seeking to apply should not be applied in the way that we were applying it and proposing it.
At no stage was it the case, as Mr Hanson just now wrongly and falsely asserted, that we only ever had one position or one option. The Minister for Health always stated it was our preferred option. It was always the language of the government in relation to this issue. It was our preferred option. Indeed, had the accounting standard not changed, it would still be our option. If the accounting standard had not changed, it would still be our option, as of course, coincidentally, it remains the option—the preferred option—of the Little Company of Mary.
The Little Company of Mary continues to insist that the accounting standards, even with the mooted draft change, still do not operate in the way that we believe they have operated in the past and that they have operated in the past. We have this attitude, “Look, we’ll give consideration to supporting whatever option you place on the table
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