Page 1363 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 31 May 2023
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It is worth taking note of what we are talking about here. Calvary are a vital acute public hospital providing services to the north of Canberra. They employ over 1,800 staff, from wardsmen to nurses and specialists, and they have established and maintained contracts with many local Canberra businesses.
Importantly, they have provided good health care to the ACT for over 44 years. They have 76 years left to run on a contract signed with them fairly recently by this government. Today this same government is going to tear all of that up!
What does this legislation that is before us today do? It takes over an entire hospital without the consent of staff or providers. It takes all of the land. It takes all of the assets. It takes all of the systems. It takes all of their people. It takes all of their information. It takes all of their contracts. It takes all of their hard work and goodwill, and it takes everything else that the government wants. If Calvary do not comply by 3 July, the bill contains the threat of the government calling in the police to use force to acquire it.
Most egregiously, this legislation represents a broken promise. It is an act of deceit. It is a breach of faith and a breach of trust. This government have gone back on their own deal. They have broken their word.
In 2011 the government promised to develop and work with Calvary to expand that hospital to 400 beds. We in the Canberra Liberals have always supported an expansion in acute hospital facilities in the north of Canberra, but for a decade this government has done nothing other than string us along, string Calvary along and string the community along.
This government’s future hospital plan, as it was called, that was tabled in the Assembly in 2011 promised a 400-bed Calvary acute hospital. On the back of that they signed an 88-year contract with Calvary that has 76 years left to run.
It is an important point, Madam Speaker, that it is this government that signed that contract! As Archbishop Christopher Prowse said in the Canberra Times on 24 May:
These are not agreements signed by some long past government. It is the same ACT government that signed the deal that now wants to tear up the contract it signed. A contract, in fact, signed by federal Finance Minister Katy Gallagher when she was ACT chief minister.
This bill that is before us today is just a way for this government to legalise breaking that contract and breaking their word.
What the government are doing, and what they have done, is ambush a health provider here in the ACT. They did it in secret and they did it with deceit. As we heard Mrs Kikkert say, this is a deal that they had stitched up between them, behind closed doors, in this place, in the community and in committee. It is absolutely irrefutable. I will quote Calvary from 10 May, in an article headed, “Devastated” Calvary Boss says government went quiet for 6 months”:
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