Page 955 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019
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The operating theatres at Canberra Hospital only work for eight hours a day, five days a week, with some emergency surgery done out of hours. The Canberra Hospital does not have enough beds for more surgery to be done on the campus. The government has to outsource additional surgeries to the private sector which, lo and behold, is more efficient.
I come from the private sector, and if a manager failed to maintain assets of the business and allowed buildings to catch fire, the responsible manager would be sacked. If the business failed to replace assets when it needed to, the responsible manager would be sacked, because the business would go broke. If a manager failed to maintain assets and plumbing issues led to sites being closed for months at a time, they, too, would be let go.
The health minister may believe that her position is more that of a chair of the board. If the board failed to take action to replace critical infrastructure, the share price of the company would tumble. Shareholders would revolt and would demand that the board be fired; most definitely, the chair of such a board. Shareholders would lose confidence in the chair.
The shareholders of our public health system are the voters of the ACT. They have continued to lose confidence, not just in this minister but in this government, for the past decade. They have run with a “born to rule” mentality, and they have the arrogance of thinking that they have a claim to occupy the executive bench. But it is worth noting that over 60 per cent of Canberrans voted against them at the last election. Over 60 per cent did not want those opposite running the territory.
This government has lost touch. The minister has lost touch. The minister is highly incapable of addressing the critical issues inside the Health portfolio. We have seen a failure in culture, we have seen a failure in management, a failure in managing the capacity needs for the community inside Health: a failure of management. This minister has failed on every front.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (12.09), in reply: This is an important issue, and the Canberra Liberals do not resile from drawing to this Assembly’s attention the failure of the performance of this Minister for Health and Wellbeing.
It is not surprising that this motion will fail today, because the crossbench has become the insurance policy for this government. It is also not surprising because if Mr Rattenbury were to vote as he should in relation to the performance of this minister, it would be an indictment of him as well, because of his failings in overseeing his part of the Health portfolio.
Once upon a time the Greens talked about third-party insurance, but it is actually only insurance so long as it is for the Labor Party. They are there to ensure that the Labor Party and their ministers, no matter how poorly they have performed, stay in their jobs, because they have an interest in doing this.
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