Statements
Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital—Radioactive leakage
Statement
Hon Nick Goiran (Leader of the Opposition) (6:00 pm): I rise this evening noting that this has been, at the very least, a very difficult week for the Cook Labor government. Unless members have been hiding under a rock, they will know that the government is under sustained pressure at the moment with respect to its performance and its accountability in the health portfolio.
One of the multitude of ministers who has something to do with the health portfolio is Hon Minister Carey. He has come into the spotlight and been under sustained public pressure because of his underperformance in the last few days in responding to matters of accountability and transparency. One need only read some of the public reports, articles, opinion pieces and commentary to draw that particular conclusion. Sometimes it is difficult. Governments are going to have good days and bad days. I think at this point, more than two-thirds of the way through the sitting week, we can say that it has been an extremely bad week for the government. We will see how we go tomorrow.
This whole situation is not helped when ministers and their representatives in this place make things worse by their own actions and omissions. I want to draw to your attention, Acting President, a sequence of questions that have been asked this week about the health portfolio. Yesterday I gave notice of a question I asked to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health . That is the convention in this house, particularly if we are asking a question of a minister in the other place. I was then told that it had been redirected to the Minister for Health Infrastructure. That is a decision made by government. I have not asked the Minister for Health Infrastructure for a response to my question. I have asked the Minister for Health a particular question. The government, behind the scenes, decided of its own volition to redirect it to the Minister for Health Infrastructure. I cannot do anything about that. That is something that the government has done.
Yesterday I asked that question to the parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health Infrastructure. It is all about what has been reported as radioactive water leakage at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital. Notice of my question was originally given to the Minister for Health and her representative in this place. The government decided that it did not want that minister to respond to that particular question and redirected it to Minister Carey to answer. Remember that this was reported on the front page of The West Australian yesterday. Specifically on the radioactive water leakage, I asked:
Will the minister table the maintenance request and follow-up report?
I have asked for two documents. It was a five-part question. In the response to the first part of the question, I did not receive an answer. The question was:
Will the minister table the maintenance request and follow-up report?
I listened to Hon Michelle Hofmann's contribution last night to such a question. The response options are either "yes", "no" or "I do not know". My question was:
Will the minister table the maintenance request and follow-up report?
To say "I don't know" would be ridiculous in that situation. The minister is either going to table the maintenance request and the follow-up report or he is not. He did not answer that yesterday. Instead, we had one of those typical "(1)–(3)" catch-all responses that did not indicate at all whether there would be a response to that. Today, I followed up and asked the Minister for Health Infrastructure:
(1) Has the minister determined that the release of those documents is not in the public interest?
(2) If no to (1), will the minister now table the requested documents?
I have had a response to that this afternoon. No documents have been tabled, but I think the response will interest not only you in particular, President, but also members of this honourable house. The response, amongst other things, says:
The document available was released through a freedom-of-information process.
Before I draw it specifically to your attention, President, I rhetorically ask new members of this place whether they think that it is acceptable for a government, when asked by the Parliament of Western Australia to table documents in this place, to respond that the document available was released through a freedom-of-information process? That indicates that through government channels the information has been released publicly through a freedom-of-information process. In other words, there has not been a determination that the matter should be kept secret because of some public interest. Is that information now available to everybody in Western Australia? Is it available to Parliament? No, it is not. It is available to whomever has made the freedom-of-information application. The Parliament of Western Australia is entitled to have this information.
I turn my attention to the more senior members of the government and ask whether they think that this is appropriate. Is this the standard that members opposite think is acceptable for the Legislative Council, this house of review? Do they think it is okay for a minister to indicate on the record that the documents that have been asked for in this place have been made publicly available via a freedom-of-information application? Is it going to be tabled here? Maybe this is another way to phrase the issue, President: Would senior members of government opposite prefer that tomorrow morning when we start at 10:00 that the opposition moves a motion to suspend standing orders so that we can then consider a more substantive motion ordering the Leader of the House in this place to provide that information to the house at some later stage? Would that be a better use of the Legislative Council's time or could all of this be resolved if people actually did their job?
In the remaining moments that I have, I draw to members' attention the statement made by President Doust on 23 August 2017:
Having presided over 16 question times since this chamber gave me the honour of electing me as President, I want to draw members’ attention to some important matters relating to the asking and answering of parliamentary questions. Questions are an important illustration of the principle of responsible government: that ministers are responsible to Parliament individually and are accountable for the administration of their own portfolios and for the acts of government collectively.
I encourage members to look at the entire statement made by the President on 23 August 2017. That is all members need to do. They should read the entire statement. It was instructive to every member of this place. This is not being followed by the Cook Labor government at the moment. The parliamentary secretary representing the Minister for Health Infrastructure in this place, who is new, today provided that answer. She is responsible for that answer. She has been asked twice, in a representative capacity, to table the maintenance request and the follow-up report relating to the alleged radioactive water leak. Apparently, it has already been provided by way of a freedom-of-information application, so there should be absolutely no problem providing this tomorrow. A statement should be given by somebody in government tomorrow and they should table those documents without any further delay, otherwise the opposition will have to consider other measures.
