Page 3680 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 18 September 2018
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MS FITZHARRIS: I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. I am able and I am willing. I have spoken on multiple occasions in this place about a series of initiatives, reforms and decisions that I have taken to address a number of the matters raised in that opinion piece on which Mr Coe reflected in his question.
MR COE: Minister, why have you failed to support a board of inquiry into the crises facing ACT Health?
MS FITZHARRIS: I note that there is a motion on the notice paper for tomorrow. I do not believe that a board of inquiry is warranted.
MRS DUNNE: Minister, has your handling of this series of crises in ACT Health made matters worse?
MS FITZHARRIS: No, and I do not agree that there has been a series of crises in ACT Health. Again, I ask members opposite to reflect once again on the very hard work of ACT Health, particularly as it has been recently reflected. Members opposite had a lot to say about the initial accreditation report received from the national body overseeing healthcare standards in this country.
It was not a good report in March. It was not a good report. Members opposite had plenty to say about that. What they have not had much to say about at all was the report from the same organisation, the pre-eminent accreditor of hospitals in this country, the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards, that works on behalf of the Commission on Safety and Quality for Australian Healthcare Systems, which gave ACT Health an unconditional—
Mr Coe: So you get a pass mark and now you want to be thanked. You want to be thanked for it, do you?
MS FITZHARRIS: Yes, in fact, I think ACT Health staff do want to be thanked. ACT Health staff do want to be thanked for the extraordinary work that they have done, particularly in the past three months but that they do every day. You see again and again the Canberra Liberals talking down the ACT health system.
Mr Coe: You will take the compliments but not the criticism.
Mr Rattenbury: And you will do the criticism and not a compliment.
MS FITZHARRIS: Believe me, Madam Speaker, I have taken plenty of criticism from the opposition in this place.
Mr Hanson: Mr Rattenbury, less interjecting, please.
Mr Rattenbury: You are a joke.
MS FITZHARRIS: The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards in July of this year handed down a report—
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