Page 1787 - Week 05 - Thursday, 16 May 2019
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people who made the complaints and by attacking the Canberra Times for reporting the complaint.
She should have been saying, “Maybe we have problem here, but the people on the ground on the day, when that complaint became known in February, did exactly the right thing and we’re on top of it.” But she went around and said, “No, no, no, it didn’t happen.” Now she is saying it was not substantiated, instead of saying, “Maybe we have a problem. Maybe we should have some more education. Maybe we should have more discussion. Maybe we should be dealing with the culture issues.”
Ten years ago Katy Gallagher talked about a 10-year war in obstetrics. It seems to me, from what we are hearing and with consultants going to the Centenary hospital, that we are now into a 20-year war in obstetrics. And that is not good for anybody. It is not good for the mothers and their babies who are born in this town. It causes people to make decisions, and all the rhetoric from the minister about respectful pathways and taking things very seriously—I do not know how many times she used the word “serious” in her statement—does not wash if you do not address the issues.
Respectful pathways is what they talked about with bullying and harassment. They said, “There’s nothing to see here. We have respectful pathways. We don’t tolerate it. We take this very seriously. We have zero tolerance.” But that is not what Mr Reid and his investigators found when they finally got into the hospital system.
The minister needs to be a little more forthright in the way she deals with things. The minister needs to not treat everyone who criticises the system as personally reflecting on her; she needs to take it less personally. The minister needs to discern from the advice she receives how good that advice is. The minister should look back on her experiences, at how many times she has been advised that X, Y or Z is not a problem and then she has had to back-pedal. The score card is growing. I thank the minister for the statement today but I encourage her in the future to be more forthright and less defensive.
MS FITZHARRIS (Yerrabi—Minister for Health and Wellbeing, Minister for Higher Education, Minister for Medical and Health Research, Minister for Transport and Minister for Vocational Education and Skills) (11.32), in reply: Mrs Dunne indicated in her opening what was in the statement that was circulated. On a final proofread it was corrected in my comments and in the submission I circulated. The submission to the inquiry was not anonymous. I corrected that in both my statement and the statement tabled in the chamber and circulated.
Mrs Dunne: The version I got did not say that.
MS FITZHARRIS: Yes, that would be right. After a final proofread the statement was corrected and the version circulated this morning agreed it was anonymised. I also corrected that in my comments.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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