Page 5964 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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MRS DUNNE: I think I do; I am the one standing. The whole issue here is that the minister set this up. “This is the inquiry we have to have; this is the only way we can do it.” She also made commitments that she would actually release as much information as possible. That suddenly becomes a big, fat zero. What we actually have is a cover-up. This is a cover-up, and you have to ask the question: what is the minister and her officials covering up? Who are they protecting? In the process of who they are protecting, who are they damaging? I would contend that they are damaging all the people who have complained in this regard and all the people who should be exonerated in this inquiry.
By the mere fact that nothing is being revealed, we besmirch everybody. This minister has presided over a monumental cover-up. She has been ineffectual. She admitted she had been ineffectual in dealing with the 10-year war in obstetrics, and she has continued to be ineffectual. It culminates today in this cover-up, aided and abetted by the Greens. The people of the ACT need to know that obstetric health in the ACT is not in safe hands, because this minister has washed her hands of it.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (3.23): I concur with the sentiments just expressed by Mrs Dunne. What has been created by the minister in seeking to cover up this process and issue is to call into question a whole class of people and their actions. If this minister has her way and she successfully continues in the cover-up of these allegations and the findings of this inquiry, we will never know who is actually to blame and who engaged in inappropriate behaviour. We will never have satisfaction for those who have made very serious claims and allegations. What the minister has now done is to say, “Well, we’re going to put in place a process whereby we can never actually find out what went wrong. We can never actually know.” Apparently the minister can never actually know—
Mr Hanson: Very convenient.
MR SESELJA: Convenient, yes. The minister can never actually know what went wrong. How does the minister actually fix the problems if she does not want to know what they are? I have not heard the minister answer that question. How will she fix the problems given that she has said, “Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me what’s wrong. I don’t want to know”? She set up a process whereby apparently she does not even know, where the community does not know, where the Assembly does not know, where those who complained do not even know.
Where do we go when we have got a situation where the minister does not even know what the problems are, where the minister cannot even get the details? We are left nowhere. We are left with no satisfaction. We are left where we started. Where we started, of course, was with mass resignations and with serious claims being made. From day one, this minister tried to suppress them. She claimed there was no problem. “Nothing to see here.” We have heard it so many times in the media and the Assembly, “No, there are no problems.” Then she admitted that there had been a 10-year war going on in obstetrics. She went from saying there were no problems, that it was just mud-slinging and doctor politics, to a position where she acknowledged that there was a 10-year war in obstetrics.
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