Page 748 - Week 02 - Thursday, 10 March 2011
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Mr Doszpot: Did you dispute the comments at all?
MS GALLAGHER: Yes, I did, Mr Doszpot.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, a supplementary question?
MR HANSON: Minister, would you table for the Assembly any document relating to the purchase of Calvary hospital which was released to the electorate prior to the election of 2008 despite the fact that you had a draft heads of agreement that you were trying to have signed with Calvary hospital?
MS GALLAGHER: Talk about rewriting history! I was not attempting to have rushed through a heads of agreement. LCM at the time requested that a heads of agreement be signed so that discussions could continue through caretaker. At the end of the day the work had not proceeded to the point where that occurred, Mr Hanson. But, as I said, and I think if you asked the chair of LCM at the time he will back me up on this, they had requested that discussions, because they were in their early stage, remain confidential. The government’s commitment to the community was very clear: we wanted to build a hospital system that will serve the needs of this community into the future. We put the money into it and we put the work into it. Those commitments are very clear. You can scrabble around and try and trip me up on this, Mr Hanson—but you won’t find anything.
Housing—affordability
MR SMYTH: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Chief Minister. I refer to the front page article in the Canberra Times today entitled “Battlers shut out of house market”. The article highlights the increasing difficulty for police officers, teachers, nurses, firefighters and ambulance officers to buy a home in Canberra. This comes on the back of the consistent findings of the HIA-Commonwealth Bank report which ranks the ACT near the bottom of first homebuyer affordability. In the article you, as you have done previously, arrogantly dismiss the concerns and claim that Canberra is affordable.
Chief Minister, given that it is your policies which have made it so hard for workers such as police, firies, nurses, teachers and ambulance officers to buy a home, will you now apologise to these and other Canberrans for your massive policy failure?
MR STANHOPE: I thank Mr Smyth for the question. It does give me an opportunity to explain some of the methodology within the Bankwest report. The fact is, of course, that the Bankwest report applies to all of Australia and the comments that were made in relation to Canberra were made in relation to every other city in Australia bar Hobart, from memory.
Mr Smyth: So you are as bad as everybody else.
MR STANHOPE: No. What it does is represent a significant issue for the whole of Australia. Indeed, in relation to this particular issue—
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