Page 1645 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
responsibility and accountability for a directorate which has presented falsified data over a protracted period.
At the outset, the fact that Mr Barr had to stand up and talk about this issue I think shows how compromised the Chief Minister is. The fact that such a scandal has erupted at the Canberra Hospital and the Chief Minister, the health minister—the person who has been health minister for six years—cannot even stand up in this place and explain to members what has occurred because, after seeking legal advice, she is so compromised she cannot talk about it, I think is probably the strongest argument for a board of inquiry to investigate what has gone so horribly wrong within the Chief Minister’s directorate.
It is quite clear that unless we have a board of inquiry with the full powers and the remit to investigate all of the circumstances and issues that have come to light, and perhaps others that have not, there will be a stench that remains around Katy Gallagher and, sadly, around the Canberra Hospital with regard to this issue, because what is without question is that a very senior administrator who has family links to Katy Gallagher has deliberately falsified information to make emergency department results look better. That is without question. But there remain a significant number of questions that have not been answered. Principal amongst those is: why was this data manipulated to make the results look better?
It is clear that what the government is attempting to do is to influence this place and the media to limit the scope of any inquiry simply to the data, to look at the data. But there are issues surrounding this, issues that have resulted in the Deputy Chief Minister having to stand up and speak on behalf of his Chief Minister that go well beyond simply looking at the data. If we are going to remove that stench then we need to make sure that there is an independent look at what has gone so terribly wrong and that it is done by a board that has the full powers to investigate, to subpoena witnesses, to protect witnesses, to get all the information they need.
My motion also calls for the minister to be censured. It is without question that she has misled this Assembly. She has misled this Assembly on numerous occasions, because, every time she has come into this place in recent times and provided data on emergency departments, she has misled. She knows that. She knows that that is the case.
The ministerial code of conduct says that ministers should take reasonable steps to ensure that the factual content of statements made in the Assembly is soundly based and that they correct any inadvertent error—inadvertent error—at the earliest opportunity. The Chief Minister, knowing that she has been misleading the Assembly—she has admitted so in public—has had the opportunity to come into this place to correct the record and to apologise to members, and she has declined to do so. Instead, the Deputy Chief Minister has stood up and read out a statement that does not apologise, that does not correct the record.
So she has broken her own ministerial code of conduct this morning. Her refusal to come in and apologise, her refusal to come in and correct the record, is a breach of the ministerial code of conduct, Mr Speaker, in black and white, because what is without question is that she has misled the Assembly, as we know, on numerous occasions.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video