Page 1659 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
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Omit all words after “investigations are completed”, substitute:
“(2) requests the Auditor-General to inquire into data discrepancies in Emergency Department waiting times at The Canberra Hospital; and
(3) calls on the Assembly to offer its support to all of the staff at the Health Directorate who have been affected by this matter and who continue to provide our community with the highest standard of care possible through the provision of 24 hour access to emergency health care.”.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.52): From the contributions of Ms Gallagher and Ms Bresnan, I think that they still do not get it and that Ms Gallagher still does not appear to get it when she says this is just about data. That was the statement she made in her defence—that this is just about data. No, it is not just about data. This is about honesty. This is about this government lying to the community about hospitals. This is the government saying to those people who have experienced our emergency departments, who have waited for too long in our emergency departments, that they were wrong. This is about a government that manipulated data to suit its own political ends.
It had a problem. The problem was that it had the worst waiting times in the country. And what happened in response? The books were cooked so that it did not look quite as bad. So no, this is not about just data. This is about honesty and this is about the community’s legitimate expectation that, when the government tells them what is happening in their hospital, it is true. It turns out it was not.
I have not yet heard Ms Gallagher apologise to the community. I have not heard an apology to those people who have been waiting in our emergency departments, in many cases for far too long. And let us face it, we hear all sorts of defences from this government when we raise these issues. “Individual cases, they are just individual cases.” We know the stats are bad but the stats have been manipulated. Ms Gallagher, as far as I am aware, still has not gone to the community and said: “I am sorry. I am sorry that my government lied to you and it misled you and that in doing so it undermined confidence, your confidence, the community’s rightful expectation that when a government speaks to it about an issue as serious as hospital waiting times, as emergency department waiting times, when a government speaks to the community, it is telling the truth.” That is what they do not get, and that is what the Greens do not appear to get, that there is a breach of faith, that there is a breach of trust when these things happen.
How will we be able to believe any of the stats that are given to us by this government? Good, bad or indifferent, how will we be able to believe them when, at the heart of the Chief Minister’s own department, at the heart of Katy Gallagher’s own department, was the manipulation of data, it appears, for political ends?
We heard in contributions and we heard from Peggy Brown that there was no personal gain, there was no financial gain for the individual involved. So the question we are left with is: why? Why did this senior executive, senior hospital administrator, acting alone apparently—and this is what we are being asked to believe; we are being asked
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