Page 3346 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 2010
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was negligently wrong. She was negligently wrong to the tune of $77 million. I remind the Assembly that I moved a motion last October, nearly a year ago, calling on the Calvary hospital purchase to be put to the Auditor-General so that she could look at it, so she could examine these sorts of issues, and that was voted down. I remind the Greens that they supported the government—what a surprise!—in voting that down. Had we got that motion up and had the Auditor-General been able to look at this then I think we could have all wasted, saved, a lot of time.
Mr Stanhope: Wasted, yes. You got it right first time.
MR HANSON: Well, we know who the waster is, Jon. If the opposition and others had not delayed this minister, if we had not stepped in her way with some very credible arguments that we put up and, in part, if the minister had not been so bungling that this proposal kept on being delayed then what is beyond dispute is that we would have spent, or she would have spent, $77 million of taxpayers’ money entirely unnecessarily.
This has not been without pain. Although we have saved the money, thankfully—how many doctors, how many nurses, is that?—this has not been without pain. It has been a significant aggravation to the staff of the hospital. It has been an aggravation to patients and numerous community groups. Even the union came out against the minister. It has disrupted and distracted the Little Company of Mary, ACT Treasury, ACT Health and the Assembly. If you look at the performance of our health system, the way elective surgery is going, the way that GP numbers are going and so on, clearly for the last two years it has entirely distracted this negligent health minister.
On so many levels Katy Gallagher is a failed health minister. She is failing our patients, the people that use the health system. They have lost their confidence in her. She is failing the doctors and the nurses, the people whom she failed to support through this whole obstetrics review. The numerous doctors and nurses that I speak to that are now calling into my office have clearly lost confidence in their minister. She has failed every taxpayer in the ACT. They would have lost $77 million if Katy Gallagher had had her way. It is a shame that the Greens will not stand up. The Greens in this town talk about being the third force in politics, but at every step of the way, despite the evidence, they automatically leap to the defence of Katy Gallagher.
We should have had a board of inquiry into what was going on at the Canberra Hospital, but the Greens stopped it. The Calvary purchase plans should have gone to the Auditor-General, and the Greens stopped it. We should have had a censure of Katy Gallagher over her mismanagement of the elective surgery list and her contrivance when she was moving category 1 patients to category 2, but the Greens stopped it.
I am disappointed, but not in the least surprised, that Meredith Hunter spent the bulk of her speech today defending Katy Gallagher. She did not even go to the substance of the motion, or hardly went to the substance of the motion. She brushed over that and spent as much time as she could attacking Mr Seselja and defending Katy Gallagher. I think that that goes to the nature of the Greens. We have a left-wing party and a far-left-wing party working together in cahoots. If we need further evidence in this town that that is the case, we see it again today from Meredith Hunter and the Greens.
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