Page 2132 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
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Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, was moved to enter the debate, claiming that the government’s motives were ideological and driven by anti-Christian elements. A dispute subsequently arose between the Little Company of Mary Health Care and the government over an accounting concession. This again resulted in endless column inches in newspapers and claims of lack of dialogue, obfuscation, prevarication, avoiding the issues. Openness and transparency!
The no-confidence motion brought by the opposition in August last year highlighted a litany of flaws and cover-ups. It raised issues of competence, diligence and judgement—a flawed sale process, secret negotiations that the minister denied until the deal was leaked to the media, serious allegations of bullying that the health minister dismissed as no more than “mud-slinging” and “doctor politics”.
But did the minister learn or admit to anything? Her response at the time was to say, yes, she does take time to reflect on her own performance but that the opposition had got it wrong. The minister suggested that in any event, her actions and comments in respect of staff issues at Canberra Hospital were based on advice she had received from ACT Health. So there you have it. It was not her fault. It was the department. The media dubbed her the “Minister for Not Responsible”.
There is a pattern of behaviour here. If we go back to the Chief Minister’s time as education minister, this was the minister who, on the eve of the 2004 election, stated that during the term of the next government, “The government will not be closing schools.” Sound familiar? Well, it does and in fact it does sound like, “There will be no carbon tax under any government I lead.” Obviously, the PM has been quite a role model for our new Chief Minister.
This government has form. We all know the history. Only weeks after the 2004 election 39 schools were targeted for closure and 23 did close. The consequence of that tragic fiasco was that whole school communities were split apart. Teachers were involuntarily reassigned to new schools. Families were drastically affected and inconvenienced. Such understanding and openness from the minister who, at the time, was not only minister for Education but had also been Minister for Industrial Relations!
Of course, we on this side of the chamber were not at all surprised to see that public school enrolments started to drop. Is it any wonder? What parent could be certain that the school they planned to send their child to would still be there when the time came? This year the latest school census tells us that we now have 41 per cent of students in Canberra enrolled in non-government schools and even more significantly, and unlike anywhere else in Australia, more high school students are enrolled in the non-government sector than in the government schools sector. Parents have voted with their feet and moved their children.
Openness and accountability! No accountability and no openness in that whole process. No consultation, just process and appearance of consultation but no real dialogue, no listening and definitely no lessons learned from previous high-handed decisions. Of course, there were the usual assurances from government at the time—the government in which she was Deputy Chief Minister—to parents that schools would not close if the proposal did not have the support of the local community.
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