Page 3770 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 19 September 2018
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
The problem with the minister’s approach is that there is no legal underpinning. There are two mechanisms that I know of—and I stand to be corrected; there are lawyers in this place and I am not one of them—that would give a legal underpinning to an inquiry, a review, call it what you want. Those mechanisms are through the Inquiries Act or public interest disclosure provisions. Public interest disclosure provisions we know do not work because of the privacy issues around those; it is a very fraught piece of legislation.
The minister is fighting, kicking and screaming—she does not want an inquiry under the Inquiries Act but she has boxed herself in. She is saying it is not warranted, that everyone has to lawyer up. It does not have to work like that. The example we have of how a board of inquiry under the Inquiries Act would work is an inquiry into the health system. We have already had an example and that was the Gallop inquiry.
The Gallop inquiry, interestingly enough, was proposed principally by the ACT Greens. The ACT Greens member in this place at the time, Kerrie Tucker, was the principal proponent of the board of inquiry into mental health systems which was eventually conducted by retired Justice Gallop and others. Back in the days when the Greens were not in bed with the government, they were prepared to use the mechanisms we had to get a great outcome,
I worked for the government that was opposed to that. I have been on both sides of the argument, but there is no doubt that the Gallop inquiry brought about appropriate changes to mental health services in the ACT back at the turn of the millennium. These were important things, and they were done because the Greens were prepared to man up and stand up to the government, which they are no longer prepared to do.
As was expected, Minister Fitzharris moved an amendment, and as was expected she moved it after I got to my feet. Again, it shows a lack of courtesy. This minister has become a serial offender in that space of waiting until people are on their feet before moving amendments.
She has said repeatedly—and she repeated it today—that a board of inquiry is not warranted and would not be the process necessary to get to the bottom of these issues. But she is left scrambling to find an alternative. She says she will announce an alternative in the coming days. I have predicted already that the minister will announce this after 3 o’clock on Friday, after question time, so she cannot be questioned in this place, and as the media is going to bed, essentially, at the conclusion of the working week. I challenge the minister not to do that. I challenge the minister to be up-front and not make this announcement in the putting-out-the-trash mode that I expect is likely to happen. I hope to be pleasantly surprised about this.
The minister spent a lot of time saying that I have been unfair to the health system because I did not extol the virtues of them finally obtaining accreditation in July. My principal complaint has been: why was the health system not prepared enough to obtain accreditation the first time, in March? It is not as though this was a surprise visit; it was planned for. They were prepping for it. But they failed 30-plus of the provisions, and that is why they had to come back and have another go.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video