Page 3676 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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Here we are already before day one getting your oppositional position we know you are going to take on the basis of a request which you know we will not agree to in relation to the release of commercial-in-confidence documentation. Let us just keep that rabbit where it is and not have it run down holes all over the place. Those documents are sought and provided on an understanding by everybody involved that, of course, they are commercially sensitive. We are talking here about a commercial arrangement, commercial negotiations in relation to property.
We are not in a position to just say, “Yes, of course, we will release that information or that advice.” There is a whole raft of advice and documents that governments get or negotiators get in relation to any commercial negotiation which just simply, appropriately, cannot be released. There are some, as you know, in relation to these negotiations.
We know what you are going to do. The people of Canberra know what you are going to do. You are going to do what you have always done. You are just going to oppose. You are going to obstruct, you are going to oppose, you are going to put at jeopardy the healthcare needs of this community, and you do not care.
But we will continue to work in the way that we have. The minister will continue to work to achieve good outcomes, because we are committed to the pressing need to invest in the healthcare infrastructure and to develop seamless integrated healthcare systems for this community. We are committed to it, and we have identified the funding. Up to a billion dollars will be required over the next decade or so.
We are the government that identified the need. This minister is the minister that developed the plan. This is the minister that is in the process of making the most massive investment consistent with the strategic plan in public health in the ACT in our history, and she will do it with or without your assistance.
Mr Hanson: I seek leave to speak again briefly.
Leave not granted.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (4.03): Mr Hanson just wanted to explain a few things. If that is the case, if that is the pettiness of the Chief Minister, then so be it.
The inconsistency of the Chief Minister in that speech! It is one of the largest rambles he has ever undertaken in this place. I have sat through all his speeches; I have heard them all. That one bears so little relevance to the reality of what has happened over the past two years that it is quite amazing. He is quite hidebound to stand up here and say what he said.
Let us go back to 2001 when the Chief Minister promised to be more honest, more open and more accountable. He said he would not hide behind commercial in confidence. He said, “We will not do that. We don’t like the use of commercial in confidence. We won’t hide behind it.” Yet here he is hiding behind commercial in confidence. There is the opening premise. This is the man who said “more honest,
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