Page 1662 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 May 2013
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I think it is no wonder that the government does not want the opposition there. I commend Zed Seselja and Brendan Smyth for their efforts. The only thing I would say is that they probably did such a good job over the last two years that they have now got the government to a point where they do not want the opposition to turn up, so I am not going to have my go, which is a bit disappointing. But I think that we know what the reality is.
Mr Seselja: You would have destroyed them too, Jeremy.
MR HANSON: Thank you very much for the vote of confidence. It is probably quite true. We are probably waiting for the next good idea from this government. Let us see what they come up with.
Ms Gallagher: It’s hard from the opposition benches, isn’t it? You’re so great! You’re so great that you’re in opposition and leading the party!
MR HANSON: Let us talk about the Chief Minister. The Chief Minister wants to have another go now, so let us get back to the Chief Minister. It is her turn again.
Let us go back to the ED scandal, because I know she loves me talking about that. I know she loves me talking about her personal relationship with Kate Jackson. I know she loves me talking about the fact that this is probably the greatest scandal that has occurred in self-government history. You have a close personal friend of the Chief Minister who doctors information at the hospital, at the emergency department, for what she describes as the political imperative, and because she felt fearful for herself and her staff. She doctors information on such a massive scale that the Chief Minister now has to admit that the performance of the emergency department is now substandard and is the worst in the nation in terms of timeliness, in large part because of that scandal, because of the doctoring, because this government has not been putting the resources in, because essentially everybody thought that the performance of the ED was good when it was not.
This, again, was one of those issues where we had to drag this government kicking and screaming to any sort of review. We wanted essentially a royal commission on this—a proper inquiry, an independent, full inquiry where someone could subpoena witnesses and so on. That did not happen and I think that is disappointing. The Auditor-General did do her review and certainly she exposed a terrible culture. This government and this minister established a culture whereby senior executives think that, rather than allowing the truth about the health system to come out, it is appropriate—in fact necessary—for them to fabricate data on a massive scale.
The Auditor-General said that in her view this was not just one individual but actually a number of individuals doing this. The government has made no effort to find out who those other people are. And this is a government that says it is open and accountable. Well, it is not. This is a government that is anything but; and the people of the ACT, whether it be in their water bills, whether it be with being misled on numerous things, or whether it be the fact that they are waiting longer in ED than anywhere else in this nation, are paying the price.
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