Page 3158 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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The only other substantive point that Mr Corbell made was that if the Chief Minister had failed to disclose the conflict of interest, there might be a case. She did fail to disclose the conflict of interest. So, again, Mr Corbell has backed our claim. He has backed our claim through his words. It is an absurd defence to say it is about whether or not you took something to cabinet. Clearly, this Chief Minister has taken issues surrounding the emergency department to cabinet. Clearly, she has responsibility for what happens in our emergency department, as the minister responsible. He has helped make our case for us.
In relation to the response from the Chief Minister to the motion, Ms Gallagher, as I think Mr Coe put it so eloquently in his speech, has decided that the best thing to do is just ignore the issue, not address the facts, and simply throw unsubstantiated assertions at the Liberal Party. There is a reason for that. When your case is weak, do not argue the facts. When you have a weak case, steer away.
The motion is very clear. Ms Gallagher and the various speakers against this motion have not been able to debunk any of it. They have not been able to debunk that this minister is responsible as we have seen the health system decline. Who says so? It is not just the Canberra Liberals. The AIHW and the Auditor-General say this system has declined under this minister’s leadership. That is a statement of fact. It is not us making it up. She was the minister responsible, and she was the minister responsible while the data tampering occurred. How could this minister have allowed this to happen?
Let us put aside the third part of the motion for a moment. Let us just take this: 11,700 instances that we know about of data tampering to make this minister look good. She is telling us today that she is not responsible. You are the minister and for years in your department, at the very senior levels of your department, someone who it turns out was very close to you personally has been doctoring data to make you and your government look better. What do we make of that? What is any reasonable person to make of that, other than that is a substantial failure as a minister?
Putting aside any other facts, those facts alone condemn this Chief Minister. This happened not once, not twice, but thousands of times over a number of years at a senior level in her department. On those facts alone, this minister should go. She has then compounded these facts. She has compounded them by her failure to be honest and open about these relationships. Why did she do that? I think it is pretty obvious. Those facts sounded worse for her. The facts about the relationship sounded worse for her, so she chose cover-up instead of disclosure.
If on day one she had come out and said, “This is my relationship with this individual; this is what I am doing to respond to this scandal,” then she would have got far more credit from the community for her handling of this. It would not have changed the fact that it happened on her watch. It would not have changed the fact that it was happening systemically, that it was happening over a number of years and that it was happening at a senior level, but it would have shown a level of integrity in putting all of the facts on the table. For these reasons, this minister should not have the confidence of this Assembly on any one of these issues.
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