Page 3185 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 August 2012
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MR HANSON: Minister, if things are so good, why do your senior executives need to fabricate hospital results on such a massive scale?
MS GALLAGHER: In relation to that, that is not related to the health infrastructure program, which is the subject of this question. In addition, to answer the question which is probably out of order, I would refer the member to the Auditor-General’s report.
MR HARGREAVES: Supplementary, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: Yes, Mr Hargreaves.
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I will ask one which is relevant to the subject at hand. Can the Chief Minister and health minister please tell us what are her intentions for the future of the health infrastructure program?
Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, I ask you to rule on whether a question asking the Chief Minister for her intentions about the future would be the announcement of policy and whether that would be in order.
Mr Hargreaves: On the point of order, Mr Speaker, I am not interested in what is policy announcement and I am not interested in what is an opinion. I want to know what the health minister’s intentions are. What is she going to do around the future of the health infrastructure program?
MR SPEAKER: On the point of order, Chief Minister, you should not make any new policy announcements, but there is room for you to speak about programs that you have already disclosed.
MS GALLAGHER: Thank you, Mr Speaker. That was the intention of what I would do. We have outlined the health infrastructure program. That is a 10-year program. Of course, we are only two or three years into that program and we have already announced that it is a 10-year program.
The first parts are in place. We have got the new car park, the new mental health unit, the new centenary hospital stage 1. We will now move to stage 2 of the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children. I was at radiation oncology yesterday; they have commissioned a fourth linear accelerator to provide radiation oncology treatment—to provide us with four machines as opposed to the three that we have been operating for the last couple of years. When I was there I could see that the capital region cancer centre is well and truly out of the ground now; in fact the external parts of this building are well underway for that new cancer centre. And we are already attracting new staff to the hospital to work. I met two young doctors yesterday, from Melbourne and, I think, Sydney, who had come to Canberra to work because of the plans that we have in place about our cancer service.
Again, that is probably not something that the Liberal opposition want to hear, but it is really good for our community. The fact is that we are now attracting. Instead of
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