Page 3022 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 15 August 2018
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highlighted here, there are the issues about how a certain number of public interest disclosure issues had been raised, and there are a whole range of other cultural issues which are not touched on in the accreditation review.
It is interesting that you have both ministers walking both sides of the street. I have raised this issue over and over again. The minister has gone to great pains to emphasise that this is not an accreditation of the operation of the radiology department; it is only an accreditation of its training arm. We have one minister saying we have had a root and branch review and the other minister saying, “No, it is only about training.” They cannot even get their story straight, Madam Speaker.
I acknowledge the point made by Mr Rattenbury. I did get a little carried away with myself earlier in the week. The original version of the motion circulated did actually attempt to compel the Auditor-General, but the Clerk’s office pointed out quite rightly that I could not do that, and we modified it. Since it has been on the notice paper, it has used the words “calls on the Speaker to request the ACT Auditor-General”. So those issues had already been addressed, but I thank Mr Rattenbury for raising them.
There are a couple of issues about Mr Rattenbury wanting a way that we can deal with some of these issues that come to me. They do not fall into a black hole when they come into my office. I find ways of dealing with them. I take them to the Auditor-General. I take them in a de-identified way to ministers. I raise them in estimates. And, quite frankly, Madam Speaker, I get really unsatisfactory responses.
I raised an issue in estimates. I raised the same issue with the Auditor-General. The Auditor-General referred it to the director-general. I got a response back from the director-general today to say that he had looked at it. Nothing else. He had looked at it. These were serious complaints, and all I got was that the director-general had looked at it. I do not know what the director-general has done with it, if anything, but I get the impression that nothing has been done about it.
This is why it is very difficult for us, and this is why, in a sense, the people of the ACT who are coming to me do not trust the government and why I do not have confidence, and my staff do not have confidence, that if we take these things to the minister, they will be dealt with. On top of that, I have a responsibility to people who say, “Please protect my identity,” to do what I can to protect the identity of the people who ask for protection. It would be a radical breach of the procedures of this place if somebody came to me seeking confidentiality and I blurted out their details.
Ms Fitzharris: I am not asking for their names. You have never written to me.
MRS DUNNE: Do you want to put that on the record, that I have never written to you?
Ms Fitzharris: About these issues.
MRS DUNNE: You need to be very careful about that. There are a few issues that were raised by the minister that beg more questions than they ask. The minister said that this is historical. Madam Speaker, this is a report that was written in March. This
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