Page 571 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 February 2010
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Mary to find a compromise. “I’m just not sure what the answer is at this time,” she said. What a waste of 18 months. Why was she not having these discussions back in August 2008? Why was she not developing contingency plans in the event that her proposal to buy the hospital fell over? She clearly lacks an understanding of how to manage negotiations of this scale and how to plan properly.
The minister and her colleagues have been driven and blinded by ideology. She has denied all the time that there are any other viable options, but now what we see is that that is not true. There are other options, and she knows it. She is currently working with the Little Company of Mary to formulate those. It is a matter of sitting down with the Little Company of Mary and doing the hard work to develop a funding model and a service agreement that will support the north of Canberra into the future. The Little Company of Mary have said that they are open to a constructive discussion.
In my view, we will eventually see a satisfactory agreement reached between the government and the LCM. I am sure of it: there is too much at stake not to. When we do, all of Canberra will see that this exercise in the attempt to buy Calvary was an unnecessary political indulgence. The minister must now find a satisfactory outcome for all parties and accept that she has led the Canberra community up a garden path for the last 18 months.
At least we are now in a position where the threats of compulsory acquisition or building a third hospital seem to have been toned down. When this was first revealed, the minister spoke on ABC News. She said:
We have to go back to the drawing board and look at all the other options if there are any from compulsorily acquiring it to the status quo.
The next morning she backed this up, put it on the table again. She said, “We’re going to have to look at it seriously, from compulsory acquisition to the status quo.” Bizarrely, hours later, when the Greens brought this issue up—Ms Bresnan brought this issue up—the minister turned on the Greens and said:
I think it’s a crazy option … It would tie up 30 per cent of our public health system …
Literally in the space of two hours she went from saying “it’s on the table” to “it’s a crazy option”. It was bizarre, to say the least, and it illustrates just how incoherent this whole process has been. If I were Amanda Bresnan, I would be somewhat dismayed by what occurred that day and the government’s response. My position is quite clear: we do not support compulsory acquisition. But I think Ms Bresnan’s response would quite rightly be one of amazement.
I turn now to the government’s desire to purchase Clare Holland House. That, again, has highlighted the flawed nature of this proposal. It upset many in the community and was simply being used as a sweetener or a bargaining chip by the government to get the Little Company of Mary over the line. I will quote Peter O’Keeffe. In his article, “ACT Government is stepping away from palliative care”, he argued that Clare Holland House should not simply be sold off as a sweetener to the Calvary Hospital deal. I could not agree more.
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