Page 3750 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 September 2018
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bat away the call for a board of inquiry into ACT Health. The minister has now caved in to some extent to the pressure that she has been under. She now says, after having said that even a low-level inquiry was unwarranted, that there needs to be some sort of independent review, a lower level inquiry that does not have the powers or effectiveness of a board of inquiry. We do not know what the minister has in mind, and after yesterday’s question time it is apparent that the minister does not know what her mind is about or what that board of inquiry should look like. But more of that later.
What have professional bodies said about the need for a review? This, too, has changed since the August motion. The AMA have come out and said that enough really is enough. They have said in the context of “sunshine as disinfectant”:
The minister’s proposal for a private, behind closed-door review just doesn’t cut it. There’s no sunshine behind closed doors.
The ACT Visiting Medical Officers Association said:
Two years ago the government set up an anti-bullying committee which they called a critical culture committee … and the result has been dismal and getting worse.
The Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation said:
Too much time and money has already been wasted on private inquiries that have achieved nothing.
They went so far as to say that the minister’s proposal was “half-baked”. It was clear from yesterday’s question time that it is half-baked, that she has not thought it through, and that it was designed to avoid public scrutiny.
The media has weighed into the argument as well. A Canberra Times editorial said that the minister’s proposed review could degenerate into a waste of health services staff’s time and public money. They went on to say that if the government wants to do the job properly, it requires nothing less than a fully-fledged board of inquiry. It is an unusual circumstance for me to find that the Canberra Times is editorialising on the front page of the paper in favour of a Canberra Liberals proposal. It is a very unusual circumstance. But the government still says that a board of inquiry is not warranted.
It is interesting to see the flip-flopping of the minister. Last week she went out under pressure and said that there would be some sort of board of inquiry. Across the banner of the Canberra Times there was a quotation attributed to the minister: “There are things that need to be investigated.” By yesterday in question time the minister was playing it down again. There are things that she is afraid of.
It is interesting. The minister is obviously trying to protect people. In the media yesterday she said that there is the potential for a board of inquiry to be misused and people named in public, causing enormous professional and personal harm. I wonder what Minister Fitzharris would say to those former and even current staff of ACT Health whose careers and livelihoods, self-esteem and families have already
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