Page 3772 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 September 2018
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make recommendations and to have the capacity to have them charged with perjury if people are found to have misled the inquiry. All of these things are protections.
The Canberra Liberals started out with this view, and along the way a whole lot of people have joined us on this path. Most of the major doctor organisations have joined us. The Canberra Times has joined us. And, even if they do not recognise it, the ANMF have joined us on this path because the ANMF are more concerned—as they should be—about how to protect their members, and nothing the minister has outlined provides protection to their members.
The minister is doubling down on, “I don’t want a board of inquiry. I don’t want a royal commission,” rather than thinking about the extent to which that has to be a formal wig and gown, lawyered-up arrangement or whether it can be more informally done and the wigs and gowns are only brought out when necessary, in the same way that it was done by the royal commission into institutional child abuse.
The minister says there are safe processes and that she takes time to follow up. I have seen some of the follow-up. Most of the follow-up the minister does it to write letters to people providing them with a shopping list of how they might address bullying and harassment in the workplace. I have seen the shopping list, and it does not provide members of the public and staff of the hospital with the guarantees of safety they need.
I want to put on the record that at no stage have I sought to exclude Calvary hospital from this process. This has always been couched in terms of an inquiry into ACT Health, and Calvary Public Hospital is an integral part of ACT Health. It is axiomatic that these inquiries should cover Calvary hospital. It is the beneficiary of a $200 million-plus contract every year from the ACT taxpayers. As a great and long-time supporter of Calvary hospital it gives me no pleasure to point out that Calvary hospital is as worthy of inquiry in this regard as the Canberra Hospital. I have never sought to alienate Calvary hospital from this inquiry.
What we have heard today is both ministers saying that we need to have a respectful inquiry. There is no doubt about this. This is not a witch-hunt; this should be the beginning of a proper inquiry that brings about real cultural change over time. It might sound all a bit warm and gooey, but truth and reconciliation is what we need. We need people to come to the realisation that in certain circumstances their behaviour has been inappropriate.
There may be people who have behaved fraudulently. There may be people who have stolen, and there may be the necessity to refer some people for charges. For the most part, in relation to bullying and harassment, the resolution for that is admission of failing and, hopefully, forgiveness. That is how you create a culture.
We cannot create that culture unless we are prepared to open it up, as the Canberra Times and the AMA have said, to the disinfectant of sunlight. Private hearings by themselves will not be enough, and we need a guarantee that all of the findings are appropriately dealt with and brought into the public domain at some stage. That is what we are calling for, and if you listen hard to what the ministers have said today they are in furious agreement. They just do not want to use the Inquiries Act. But
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