Page 4395 - Week 10 - Thursday, 23 September 2010
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Under Labor, the ACT Government and its agencies will restrict the use of commercial confidentiality to the narrowest possible application. Labor accepts that there are exceptional occasions when some commercial arrangements between Government and the private sector must remain confidential. But the stress must be on ‘exceptional occasions’. Labor won’t hide behind a cloak of confidentiality.
But that is exactly what they have done in this case. It is quite critical. They have also avoided scrutiny. You may recall that in this place in October 2009 I asked for the deal to be put before the Auditor-General. At that time the government, and sadly the Greens—I think we could have saved a lot of angst in our community throughout this process if we had done that—refused for that process to occur. Mr Stanhope said in 2001:
… we also understand that it is impossible to rebuild and maintain the community’s confidence in government and its public institutions unless the business of government and these institutions is conducted in the most open manner possible.
He talked about building and maintaining the community’s confidence in government. That is exactly what he has failed to do. The minister has failed to do so by refusing to send this document, this plan, to the Auditor-General and have it scrutinised in that manner.
I also mentioned in my opening the highly inappropriate aspects to this deal. There are a number, but I think Clare Holland House being used as a bargaining chip was the highlight. That was an absolutely outrageous proposal. In order to get their Calvary deal through they were prepared to basically flog off a community asset like Clare Holland House without any reasonable justification other than to grease the wheels of the deal. I think that was seen by the community for what it was.
We also saw the implied threats to the Little Company of Mary, which essentially in correspondence were “if you don’t go through with this deal, we’re going to build a new hospital and you’ll wither and die on the vine”. That was the approach that was taken.
The government have also ignored advice. They got advice from a number of areas that they simply ignored. Tony Harris described the government’s proposal as a contrivance. Professor Sinclair Davidson, an RMIT professor of economics, described the minister’s budgetary arguments as “simply nonsense”. Andrew Podger, who is the president of the Institute of Public Administration of Australia and a former secretary of the federal health department, said:
Someone please get the accountants to fix a problem that is theirs, not the taxpayers or the hospital users.
Isn’t it a shame that Ms Gallagher did not listen to that advice back in May 2009 when it was given? Terry Dwyer, who is an economist with a PhD from Harvard, also gave advice that was ignored.
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