Page 1620 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 May 2013
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MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Ms Porter.
MS PORTER: Minister, could you update the Assembly on the progress of the building projects at the Canberra Hospital?
Mr Hanson interjecting—
MS GALLAGHER: I do note that the Leader of the Opposition does get a question and then a supplementary. He does not get to continually question me and interject throughout the next supplementary. There are a range—
Mr Smyth: Goodness me, you really must be hurting.
MS GALLAGHER: If this is how we are going to start, it is obviously going to continue. The health infrastructure programs—and there are a number of them on the Canberra Hospital site and there will continue to be. At the moment, we are completing the women’s and children’s hospital. There is expansion work underway for the emergency department and the intensive care unit. There will be further projects at the Canberra Hospital site rolled out and announced. But we are making sure that the decisions we take now deliver the healthcare system for the future.
Mr Hanson and Mr Coe interjecting—
MADAM SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson and Mr Coe! You are too noisy.
MS GALLAGHER: It is not all about Canberra Hospital. It is about Calvary hospital and the expansion plans there. It is about the north side subacute hospital and it is also about the refurbishment and the new community healthcare centres that we are building. The hospital is one part of those projects.
In relation to occupational health and safety—and this is not a matter that we take lightly at all—there have been issues and every single time those individual matters have either been drawn to my attention or drawn to the attention of the executives in charge of the health infrastructure program, those issues have been responded to, every single one of them, because we take workplace safety seriously. That is why we are the ones that have introduced the laws and that is why we will continue to see improvements made in occupational health and safety in the territory. And that includes on territory projects as well.
MADAM SPEAKER: A supplementary question, Mr Seselja.
MR SESELJA: Minister, what role will the Office of Regulatory Services have in investigating the government’s performance in this matter?
MS GALLAGHER: The WorkSafe commissioner has a very active role in investigating matters on government jobs. I think you have seen Commissioner McCabe play that role very actively during the term of his appointment and particularly in the past two years with a particular focus on the Health Directorate.
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