Page 226 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 28 November 2012

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$110 million, that should have cost $90 million, that she is now backfilling with another $30 million, that is well over a year later, that doctors have raised safety concerns about, that midwives are absolutely distraught about and that mothers are saying they feel like homeless people. That is what this minister is saying is a shining example of this government.

What is going to happen as a consequence of the debate in this Assembly today and the amendment that has been approved, with the help of Mr Rattenbury, is that we will not get to the bottom of what has gone wrong. We will not get the truth of what has happened. We will not understand why the minister got it so badly wrong. What we will get is some nice review praising the government, probably with a couple of comments in there on where they could have improved the service and so on. But the people that will be the big losers out of that—the big losers—will be the mothers and the staff and the infants who currently are not getting the services they should get in our health system.

We have come to this place again wanting scrutiny from this government. Again we have been thwarted, and it is disappointing. What we asked for was quite reasonable, and when you look at the notes that I brought into this place for my motion, all of them were factual. All of them covered essentially the story of what has happened. Nothing is inflammatory. I think even Mr Rattenbury said so in his speech—it was essentially a dissertation on what has occurred so far with this hospital project.

It called on some reasonable things: to ensure that the review into the hospital is conducted by an individual or organisation independent of the government—they did not want that—to circulate the terms of reference as soon as they are finalised—there is no mention in the amendment about the timings—to circulate the review within 24 hours of being received by the minister—no doubt she will sit on it, and she has organised it that way—and to make a statement to the Assembly to explain what she is currently doing to address the concerns raised by doctors, nurses and patients.

I do not think anything that was in that motion was unreasonable. We have again found ourselves in a situation where the minister has failed and has done everything she can to make sure the votes she has in this place thwart any attempt to uncover just how bad it is so that we can fix it in the future.

Question put:

That the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

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