Page 952 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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The $500 million project, commonly referred to under the acronym “SPIRE”, was announced on September 20, 2016, during the closing weeks of the last ACT election … It had been rolled out to trump an earlier promise made by the ACT Liberals on August 9 … to construct a new $395 million hospital building.
The ALP was originally dismissive of the Liberal pledge, describing it as spendthrift and unnecessary.
That is right. That is what this minister and her Labor colleagues thought at the time, that rebuilding the Canberra Hospital was unnecessary. That is what they believed. This is what this minister believed in her heart, that it was unnecessary, until the polling came in. The polling said that it was very necessary if the government wanted to win the election. The government’s position was, “We do not really give a stuff about the hospital. We are going to crisis manage that for 10 years.” But the polling said, “If you want to win the election, you need to do it.”
The Canberra Times editorial goes on to state:
Now, two years on from the announcement and after delays influenced by the cost of light rail and the Mr Fluffy remediation program that have already pushed the completion date back from 2022 to 2024, neither the Health Minister, Meegan Fitzharris, or anybody else in her department knows where the facility should go.
This is the heart of the problem. This minister is not committed, is not wholly committed, to this program. Her government has put the $370 million that was allocated into light rail. It was ripped out of health. When she was assistant minister and was asked about whether the government was going to rebuild the hospital, she was describing it as unnecessary. It is only on the back of polling that they then came and said, “We will do this.”
But, as the AMA, the Canberra Times and anyone observing this closely has noted, there was no plan. There was a sketchy PowerPoint photo on the back of a one-page policy. That is why we find ourselves in this position of this minister for health and her colleagues conning the people of the ACT that this government is committed to rebuilding the Canberra Hospital when it is anything but committed.
MADAM SPEAKER: Mr Hanson, I will go back to Hansard and reflect on your use of the words “conned” and “conning”. I may come back to you and ask you to withdraw that.
MR WALL (Brindabella) (11.59): We heard the minister, in her response this morning to this motion, stand behind the public servants who are doing all of the heavy lifting in the Health portfolio. Just because there are good things being done by the staff who operate underneath you, it is not a sign of your competence as a manager. This minister has categorically failed to measure up to what is expected of her as the health minister for the ACT.
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