Page 1354 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
MS GALLAGHER: Did you not just say Tom Brennan is a Labor adviser? Okay, so that was a compliment, was it? That was a compliment. Sorry, sorry, I did not understand. (Time expired.)
MR HANSON (Molonglo) (11.37): I wish to speak to the amendments, Madam Deputy Speaker. We do have some amendments to the amendments and, if they are agreed to by the Greens, we will be supporting the Greens’ amendments. I will go through what Ms Bresnan has proposed and what our changes are.
I am disappointed that the Greens have chosen to remove, in their amendments, a number of items contained in the original motion because what they are removing is actually an accurate description of the process to date. If I can read it, the first one that they will be removing is the words “secret negotiations”. That is what occurred. There is no doubt that the government was attempting to acquire Calvary Public Hospital since secret negotiations commenced in August 2008. If anyone thinks that they were anything other than secret negotiations, that they were open negotiations, then that had everybody fooled, including the electorate, who certainly were unaware when they went to the polls on 12 September.
The Greens also propose to delete the comment that the government “has failed to effectively negotiate the purchase of Calvary to date”. That is true; it has. It has been trying for 18 months to negotiate a sale and it has failed to do so to date. I cannot see where that is not the truth. It has failed to “demonstrate any health benefits of the proposed purchase”. That is indeed true. Indeed, with the new proposal being put forward, it is a reversion to the status quo, as I understand it. So it has failed, and it has continued to fail, to demonstrate any health benefits of what it is proposing. And it has failed to “demonstrate any economic benefits of the proposed purchase”. There is certainly a lot of debate about the accounting treatments and the way it was used, but there is no demonstration of the economic benefits.
Mr Stanhope: You can’t believe that garbage.
MR HANSON: I turn to one of the areas that we will be changing. The Greens—
Mr Stanhope: You are not that dumb, are you? Are you truly that dumb?
MR HANSON: I am feeling very bullied, Mr Stanhope, very bullied.
Mr Stanhope: You are very dumb. How can anybody who is as dumb as that be bullied?
MR HANSON: You are sitting across there, calling me “dumb”. Of course, that is okay if you do it to me.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Stanhope!
MR HANSON: I am happy to accept that, but if we are to question and inquire of your members then that is bullying. What a contradiction, Mr Stanhope, that somehow when you sit there—
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video