Page 1644 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 9 May 2018
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It is clear that this amendment is getting up, because, again, the Greens are not interested in providing information to the community and to the Assembly. Mr Rattenbury, with his record on freedom of information reform, which he likes to trumpet and is rightly entitled to do, shows himself to be entirely schizophrenic when it comes to something which is difficult and close to home. He is just as enthusiastic as everybody else on the government benches to close ranks and deprive people of information.
The motion that I put forward today was simply calling for the presentation of papers and the provision of ongoing information. The government clearly has a copy of the March accreditation report. It is not beyond the wit of the government to photocopy the copy of that and have it tabled in this place, but there is no commitment to do that. Yes, there is a commitment to report back in June and August, but the original motion calls for the government to provide the interim report to the Assembly and the people of the ACT, so that we can see clearly what the 33 or 37 items are, depending on how you count them, and what exactly they say about these things, so that we, as a community who invest $1.6 billion in health every year, can have oversight of the accreditation process which has gone pear-shaped and which, if it continues to go pear-shaped, has huge, incalculable implications for health provision in the ACT.
We do not know what will happen if we do not get accreditation. It is completely and utterly uncharted waters. We cannot afford to fail in July. There is a complete outbreak of unanimity on that. If this minister wants us not to fail in July, the people of the ACT deserve to know what is going wrong now that we failed in March. We do not have a commitment to that in this amendment.
Neither do we have a commitment to providing an accurate timetable for the construction of the SPIRE. My original motion called for a timetable and regular reporting on this. What we actually have is a substitute, in 2(f) of Minister Fitzharris’s amendment, a commitment to invest in health infrastructure. We know they are investing in health infrastructure, though we are not entirely convinced it is the right investment in health infrastructure, but there is no commitment to providing up-to-date information about what it will cost, when it will be built and what will be built. In my original motion, that is what was called for.
The minister has not learned the lessons of yesterday, and she will not learn the lessons of yesterday because she knows that she will be protected by the Greens at every turn. Minister Rattenbury is just as culpable and has just as many failings in his area of health responsibility as this minister has.
The Liberal opposition will not be supporting this amendment. The amendment only goes part of the way. It is a concession to provision of information, but it does not provide all the information that we needed, that we called for, that the community should have access to. The great paragon of freedom of information, access to information, will not support it. It needs to be put on the record today that the foremost campaigner for improved freedom of information—he would describe himself as the foremost campaigner—has squibbed it. He has completely and utterly squibbed it. It is not convenient for him to have this information out in the public. He will come behind the Labor Party and run protection for the Labor Party because it is
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