Page 957 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 March 2019

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Staff are not being ground down just by the stress of their work. It is hard work. We know that. You know that, Madam Speaker. You know how hard it is. As a health consumer, I know how hard people in the hospital system work. They do not need to be ground down by a minister who says, “There’s nothing to see here. There is no problem.”

The problem has been brought out in stark ways. The Canberra Times said, “This is the most searing indictment of this health minister.” They did not say it was the only searing indictment, just the worst one they have seen. She does not have the grace to say, “I was wrong. I got it wrong; I misjudged the environment. I have failed the people of the ACT.”

If the minister had done that back in January, it would be very hard for us to move the motion that we have moved in this place today, because she would have admitted to her faults. Really, what she is saying is that there is nothing to see. She is saying “Everything is ripe in the garden; we’re getting on with the business.” It is a bit Polyanna-ish, really. “We’re just getting on with the job.”

This minister has been getting on with this job for three years, in one form or another. This government have been getting on with this job for 18 years, under successive health ministers, and they have failed. They have failed the health system, they have failed the people of Canberra and they have failed the health workers. Mr Reid’s report makes it clear that the culture that they have overseen and allowed to fester impacts on patient care. We have seen from the AECOM report and various other infrastructure reports that the infrastructure they have overseen and allowed to deteriorate impacts on patient care.

The people of the ACT, the health workers of the ACT, the people who work in the building and who are treated in the building, deserve better than this minister. The Canberra Times called it for what it is. She is the minister responsible under the Westminster principles that we all adhere to for the failings in the health system. The Canberra Times said that she should have resigned. She has not, so it is now our place to tell her to resign. I commend the motion to the Assembly.

Question put:

That the motion be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question resolved in the negative.

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