Page 3954 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 25 August 2010
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Tony Harris called the argument a contrivance. Are we seriously going to suggest here in the chamber that Tony Harris does not have credibility on these issues? The former Auditor-General of New South Wales, a respected commentator on financial issues, called the argument a contrivance. You had Tony Harris calling it a contrivance. You had Sinclair Davidson, eminent economist from RMIT, saying, “The ACT Treasury calculations to not support the purchase of the Calvary hospital. Rather, they support the status quo or base case.”
You have got Sinclair Davidson; you have got Terry Dwyer PhD; you have got Andrew Podger. What would he know? What was he? He was the former head of the commonwealth department of health. And you have got Tony Harris, the former New South Wales Auditor-General. Apparently all those people were wrong, according to the government. But Katy Gallagher was right.
That is what we were expected to believe. Excuse us for being just a tad sceptical when the Treasurer cannot find one third-party validator—not one. We were able to find three eminent economists and a former senior commonwealth public servant who was head of the department of health who completely disagreed with the premise.
We have four eminent voices saying, “You are wrong.” Yet this government pushed on. They pushed on because it was ideological. They simply wanted to buy this hospital and maybe it would have been better if they were honest about that. It would have been if they were just honest and they said, “We simply want to buy this hospital. We do not want to see a private operator operating a public hospital.” We could have had a debate about that—an honest debate, an open debate.
But that goes to the other part of this motion, Mr Speaker. It is the secrecy and the way that this has been handled. It continues tonight. It continues tonight with the support of the Greens. We have seen from start to finish that the biggest problem with this, apart from the fact that the Treasurer wanted to throw away $77 million of our money, was the secrecy.
We had the Treasurer going to the election saying all the plans are on the table—all the plans except the plan to buy Calvary hospital for $77 million. We were told that it is only the little plans that are not on the table—just the minor details that are not on the table. There is an expenditure of $77 million and apparently all the plans are on the table.
That was dishonest. It was fundamentally dishonest to try and claim that all the plans are on the table when objectively they are not. It is interesting that Ms Gallagher has been attempting to interject. We know that the more the injections come from Ms Gallagher, the more concerned she is. We have seen from start to finish that she has handled this badly. Again, it calls into question her judgement, Mr Speaker. It calls into question her judgement.
Why would the Treasurer have thought that it was a good idea to plan to spend $77 million of taxpayer’s money for no good reason; for no health benefit; for no other benefit based on all of the advice, apart from the Treasury? Why would the
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