Page 3679 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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MR SMYTH: Nothing to hide? Then release the advice. The minister, the Treasurer, just said, “We have nothing to hide.” If you have got nothing to hide, release the advice. If you are not releasing the advice, you need to give us a reason as to why you will not release it.
The sad and sorry saga of Calvary goes on. The minister is clearly distracted by it. We have known from the start that there are no additional health outcomes from what the minister is attempting to do. That was the stated principle. That is why Treasury handled this. It was not about health; it was about Treasury and the bottom line. It would appear that the saga will continue.
It is important that yet again we see the government hiding, as they always do. No doubt this will continue. We have now got a bullying review that we will never see. We have got, apparently, two pieces of advice that the public of Canberra will never see, even though it is their money that is being spent to purchase an asset which, apparently, by the new accounting standard, they already own.
People need to go back to history and the 1960s when this whole issue started, when the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn, under Eris O’Brien, negotiated with the federal government to get the public hospital in the first place and to have Calvary.
Mr Hanson: Here you go. Here is the quote.
MR SMYTH: Mr Hanson has skilfully found the quote:
Under Labor, the ACT Government and its agencies will restrict the use of commercial confidentiality to the narrowest possible application.
It seems that the narrowest application would apply to just about all commercial in confidence. It is a kind of reverse Pareto principle: the 80-20 rule is backwards.
Ms Gallagher: You are not at the negotiating table; you are not having the negotiating documents.
MR SMYTH: “You are not at the negotiating table.” Yes, we hear the cry. But wait; there is more:
Labor won’t hide behind a cloak of confidentiality.
Yet here we are, yet again, hiding behind the cloak of confidentiality.
Mr Barr: You are still fighting the 2001, 2004 and 2008 elections this afternoon, are you?
MR SMYTH: The Treasurer has made her statement. She was outed last Friday by the Chief Minister on talkback, when a concerned listener rang—
Mr Barr: I like it that you can never, ever see the point.
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