Page 1327 - Week 05 - Thursday, 31 May 2007
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too, that it is very poor form of the minister to stand in this place and say that somehow we are targeting our comments to the staff and personnel at the hospital—the nurses and the doctors on the front line. That is disgraceful.
Mr Seselja: The usual defence.
MRS BURKE: As Mr Seselja says, it is the usual defence. When in doubt let us jump for the personal attack; let us just go the personal. There is no way that we would ever say anything against the nurses and doctors in our hospital system. The health minister has failed to fix the system. As I said, we have already had three health ministers since the Stanhope government came into office, yet the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report clearly signifies that there has been no impact in terms of making efficiency gains, where needed, to be able to pump the necessary resources back into the system.
Mr Corbell talks about money going down and money not going up in the ACT and that the government is not taxing more. I do not know what government members read. What figures are they looking at? Yesterday Mr Stanhope was talking about commonwealth figures. He has got no idea. It is all about management. I am not sure, but I do not think anybody on that side of the House has ever run a business or been in business. I do not know. I will stand corrected if I am wrong. That is why they are not good managers.
Mr Corbell: Mary has.
MRS BURKE: Yes, a big business, a private business. You have no idea.
Mr Corbell: That is the only qualification to be in parliament, is it?
MRS BURKE: Not at all. You cannot talk about management, particularly financial management.
Mr Corbell: Did Zed run a big business?
MR SPEAKER: Order!
MRS BURKE: You have got no idea.
Mr Corbell: Has Bill run a big business?
MRS BURKE: This is relative to being in the position to deliver sustainable, high-class services to the ACT community, to name but two areas where you would expect to see attention focused, and it simply has not been prioritised.
Mr Corbell: Yours was a very successful business, wasn’t it, Mrs Burke?
MRS BURKE: It is about prioritisation of funding. You do not know anything about that, Mr Corbell. You lost the planning portfolio and you are feeling a little bit out of sorts; so you decide to attack Mrs Burke. I am sorry. It is not working.
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