Page 160 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
before. She did not know where the funding was coming from and she forgot to mention it, because it certainly was not included in her policy announcement.
I am disappointed that this motion will not be passed and that we will have the amendment. I think what I asked for was reasonable, and I think all the points I made are reasonable, and I will go through them briefly in summary.
In 2008 Katy Gallagher promised that, if re-elected, ACT Labor would establish three walk-in centres. Page 6 of the policy document in 2008 says that in black and white. Therefore, this is a broken promise, pure and simple. “Why are we amending it,” I asked the Greens and Katy Gallagher, “to take that out, to water it down?” It is in black and white. We know that because only one centre has been built at the Canberra Hospital. The next promise, even if it is fulfilled, even if she does not break this next promise, will only deliver a total of two. So whichever way you cut it, 2008 was a broken promise.
She then went out on 12 December saying that she was going to expand the service. She was going to expand into Tuggeranong. She was going to expand into Belconnen. Her own media statements, her own press release, the ACT Labor website, media statements to the ABC, WIN, 2CC, everybody, contained not a single mention of the fact that “Oops, we’re going to close the current one down,” or, “What we’re going to deliver in Belconnen and Tuggeranong is only half a centre.” That is quite an omission. You would think the health minister might have mentioned that. Why did she not? Was she again not across what was going on, or was she trying to play a bit of tricksy? We have seen this before from this minister. She is shifty, and I think that is what we are seeing in her language. This is a bit like her excuse of why she has not built the three walk-in centres. It is all a bit shifty, is it not? A little bit like Julia Gillard.
So the media were fooled; they were conned. They believed Katy Gallagher, and we saw that in the response in some of the headlines that came out from the ABC and the Canberra Times—“Walk-in clinic election promise misleading”. Having spoken to the journalists involved, I know they felt conned. I believe one of them asked: “You know, why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell us you were going to do this?” And the response was, “Well, nobody asked.” You know, come on. Have a lend of us!
The funding issue is where we get to a bit of a grey area. Katy Gallagher is saying: “Oh, it’s in there. Trust us. It’s in the mix. Trust us. I’ve not said anything about it. I have made no commitment. My office didn’t know anything about it. They couldn’t explain it. My staff have had to go and speak to Ron Foster”—the head of finance for the Health Directorate—“to try and dig up what’s going on. There’s conversations going backwards and forwards. Yes, it’s in there. We’re thinking about it. It’s sort of in the mix and you might see it in the next budget.”
What you are seeing here is that this government are going to be playing catch-up. They have forgotten to put this in their policy announcement. They have forgotten to make any sort of statement that they are going to take over the funding of one of these walk-in centres. Now we have raised this question of an $8.9 million black hole, all of a sudden it is “Trust us. It’s in the mix. We were going to take that over. Of course we
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video