Page 2073 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 21 June 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
of all these measures? That is something that I am going to try and work on. Mr Corbell again was very evasive. He did not want to put that forward.
We also saw Mr Corbell refuse to offer up information about what had happened with the former superintendent of the ACT correctional facility. That is a matter that requires further explanation. I did try and get that referred to the committee for further investigation, but this new government of openness and accountability that we hear about—the Chief Minister again has decided to bury that as deeply as they can, probably putting it in a drawer with other things like—
Mrs Dunne: The secret bullying report.
MR HANSON: The secret bullying report, the Costello review and a bunch of other secret documents that they never want to see come to light in this open and accountable government.
Mr Smyth: The Enlighten reports.
MR HANSON: Indeed. And talking about Enlighten, wasn’t that a wonderful exercise for the ACT public? Fantastic! I am sure Mr Smyth will explore that more when we debate the budget.
In health, I suppose that the thing that we can be thankful for is that we did see some seed funding, some $4 million, in there, to start looking at what the government is going to do with our hospital system. It seems that after 2½ or three years of toing and froing on Calvary—these obsessions of trying to get rid of Calvary, doing everything they can to get rid of it—they have realised that that is not going to happen, that they are going to maintain Calvary, invest in Calvary and develop a sub-acute facility.
It does seem to me as though we are back where we could have been with the budget perhaps three or four years ago—that all we have seen essentially is ideology blinding Katy Gallagher and being pushed along a path to try and get rid of Little Company of Mary Health Care from the ACT. Now that that has failed, we are back to where we were. It is good that we have reached at least a position that seems on the surface to make some sense, and I look forward to more detail on that coming forward.
Within the police area, I think that our police are doing a fantastic job. Some of the statistics I am looking at are encouraging, and I look forward to seeing that come forward. It was disappointing to see the extra money being spent on the $5 million blow-out in the Belconnen police station. Probably Mr Corbell had something to do with that somewhere along the line. But it would be good to see some more transparency in the budget for police, given the way that it is done through a purchase agreement.
I was particularly interested in the role of the Speaker. There was a lengthy debate with the Speaker and his portfolio responsibilities clouding his impartiality as Speaker. That is an issue that we will explore. I note that when we came to debate that, one of the members abstained; when I called on the Speaker to relinquish his portfolios, one of the members abstained. So he got very close to losing his portfolios. (Time expired.)
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video