Page 1664 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
It is not just in this term, Madam Deputy Speaker. You can go back as far as 2003, when the minister was in this place, when we had the inquiry by the Select Committee on Privileges into material concerning the 2003-04 estimates, where the minister at the time was found to be in contempt of the Assembly and the officers who produced the document called Budget estimates 2003 were found to be in contempt of the Assembly as well. We did not stop the tide then. Because we did not stop the flow, because we endorsed what the Labor Party do when they are in government—and that stench of Labor corruption has now swept up to the ACT; New South Wales, Queensland, now the ACT—because we did not nip it in the bud when we should have, because the Greens will not stand up for the community, of course it will continue.
You only need to go to the letters page in Saturday’s Canberra Times. There is one letter which says:
… I witnessed time and again the political shenanigans that went on over waiting times.
This is from Mr Simon Tatz of Curtin. I am assuming it is the same Simon Tatz who was found to be in contempt of the Assembly by his actions in 2003. So, yes, that person knows well and truly the shenanigans—he participated in it willingly. And it is juxtaposed by the third letter in that section where an individual from Kambah, having asked for statistics from the Canberra Hospital, says:
… I was told in writing that I had only waited for an hour and 40 minutes. This was contradicted by Dr Hollis, head of the Emergency Department, who considered that I had waited nearly three hours—
That is almost double the time listed. The letter continued:
If senior staff can’t agree on wait times, how can I be expected to trust their figures?
How can the community trust this place if the Greens on every occasion will simply back up the government because that suits them? Who are they here for? Are they here for the community or are they here for themselves?
It is about time that the Greens re-read their policies. The Greens, under “Principles”, state in No 2:
… governments must behave ethically in all transactions and work to prevent corruption.
Surely that must mean starting at their own place, which is working to prevent corruption in the public service. We all know, because of the admission of the Chief Minister, that this data has been corrupted. It is not true data. It is not accurate data. Therefore it is corrupted data. We started with Ms Bresnan saying that they were concerned at the reporting of this data. I am not sure that the Greens even believe the data was actually corrupted. Do they? Apparently not. The Greens are just concerned about the reporting of what has gone on.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video