Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

We have seen unprecedented use of onerous government powers here in the ACT over the past few months. We're very lucky to live in a nation where governments have typically judiciously used the enormous powers that are gifted to them in our Constitution. Most Australian governments have not sought to simply appropriate people's private assets without due process, without due warning and without due consultation. I think this is perhaps the first and most egregious case in our nation's history where an elected so-called democratic government has, within a matter of weeks, done an almost midnight raid. They walked into a business, walked into a Canberra institution—the Calvary hospital—and said: 'Hey, it's a nice business you have here, guys, but we're just going to take it over.' That's exactly what happened here in the ACT a couple of months ago.

In early May the ACT government demanded a meeting with the Calvary hospital executives. At that meeting they were handed a letter from the Chief Minister of the ACT which said: 'We are going to take over your business, take over your buildings and rescind the contract we have with you that has 76 years left. We're going to take that over with six weeks notice.' Just six weeks notice was given to the Calvary public hospital, despite the fact that they had been a valued partner in the ACT providing health services for more than 50 years. This behaviour, this conduct, deserves to be called out. It deserves to be called out so that we don't see it repeated in this country.

The Senate finally had a committee hearing on the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Amendment Bill 2023 a few weeks ago. The Catholic archdiocese here gave evidence that this was the first time in our nation's history that an institution of the Catholic Church had been taken over in a compulsory fashion. Catholicism has sometimes struggled in this country. It has had some degree of opprobrium associated with it at different times, but apparently never has a government gone in and just taken over the assets of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church runs lot of different things in this country, especially in the health and education spaces, and this was the first time a government did this.

This was a shock to the ACT people. As I said, Calvary has been a valued partner of the ACT for more than 50 years. I myself lived in Canberra. It was a great place to have kids. We had three children, one of whom was born in the Calvary hospital. I think I speak for anybody who has lived in Canberra or still lives in Canberra when I say that the services of the Calvary hospital have been greatly valued by the ACT people. So, whatever the ACT government wanted to do with public hospital services here in the ACT, this was no way to treat someone in your community. The Calvary public hospital was a valued someone in the ACT community, and it was completely beyond the pale for an elected government to march in and use these most severe of government powers to just kick them out with not even a thankyou note: 'Thank you for your service. You're gone.'

Keep in mind that today we're about four or five months on from this saga, and we still don't know—more importantly, the Calvary public hospital don't know—how much the ACT government is going to pay them for this. They've taken over the assets. They took them over on 3 July. They marched in and took the crucifix down off the Calvary public hospital. It was the first thing they did, I think. They still haven't been given a final figure. How can this be in any way just? How can this be in any way on the just terms that the ACT government has to operate under when it acquires property, which this parliament has enforced through the ACT (Self-Government) Act?

Before I get more onto some of the specifics, I do want to stress that this private senator's bill simply requires the ACT government to have a review. I recognise that the ACT government is a democratically elected government. They've got an election next year, and the timing of that election might have something to do with how hastily they have done this, but eventually the Canberra people will have their say on the behaviour of their own government. But I do think they also deserve to have their say while their government is in power, and all this bill would require would be for the ACT government to have a review to give the people of Canberra their say and give the people of Canberra an opportunity to put forward the luminous concerns we received through our committee process to their elected representatives.

As I've progressed this debate, I've noticed that the ACT government seems to be confused about the concept of territory rights. The ACT Labor-Greens government seems to think that territory rights are to protect the politicians, not the people, and that somehow territory rights are there to protect the rights of those who are lucky enough to have well-paid positions in the ACT Legislative Assembly, not to protect the rights of the Canberra people. Well, I fundamentally reject that. The rights of the ACT and other territories are in fact there to protect the people of that jurisdiction. The people of that jurisdiction deserve not to have the untrammelled power of government imposed on them in this fashion. So I think it is perfectly reasonable to request the ACT government to conduct a review here.

I particularly reject some of the hypocritical squealing we've heard from other senators in this place about this issue. I've seen Greens senators pop up. Suddenly, the Greens are wonderful defenders of territory rights—and, presumably, state rights too. They've got a bill in this place at the moment that wants to stop the Beetaloo basin project. The Northern Territory government has been democratically elected to develop the Beetaloo basin. It was their policy platform. They want to do that. They want to build this thing called Middle Arm, and the Greens here want to come in and stop it. Okay, fine—but don't come back into this place and somehow say that you support territory rights when you actually have a bill to stop people from totally doing something. My bill doesn't do that. My bill doesn't stop the ACT government from deciding how it provides public hospital services. It simply would give the Canberra people a say, and I think that's perfectly reasonable.

The people who should be at the front of the line to have that say, if this review were to occur, are the 1,800 health workers, nurses and doctors who have had their lives turned upside down by a so-called Labor government here in the ACT. So not only do the people of Canberra just get six weeks notice on what would happen to their public hospital services but, more to the point, those 1,800 workers had just six weeks notice that their lives would be turned upside down.

This is a Labor government and I thought the Labor Party cared about nurses and doctors. I would love to hear from the Labor senators who respond to me what they think about the treatment of nurses and doctors in this fashion. Many of those nurses and doctors decided to work at Calvary here in the ACT because they didn't want to work for a government; they didn't want to work for a big bureaucracy. There is a whole lot of other issues that seem to be going on at the Canberra Hospital that is run by the ACT government and some people chose that, no, they would prefer to work for a charitable not-for-profit company. Some workers would also be of faith as well, whether it is Catholic or other faiths. We heard evidence from people who were of different religious faiths who felt valued within the Calvary hospital organisation and that is why they chose to work there at Bruce in Canberra. But they had their lives turned upside down with six weeks notice—no consultation, no discussion, no, 'Here, we're thinking about this option. What do you think? How do we make this easier for you?' No, just straight in.

Much worse was revealed in our committee. While the ACT government gave just six weeks notice and rushed through the legislation in the Legislative Assembly, there were obviously a lot of details to be worked out when seeking to take over someone's assets within such a short frame of time. In evidence to this committee, Calvary were not given assurances that, if they were to offer redundancies to their workforce, they would be compensated for those redundancies. Would the ACT government underwrite those redundancies? They were given no such guarantees for much of that six-week period. In fact, it was not until, I think, Thursday 30 June, the Thursday of that week, that they were given the assurance that the ACT government would underwrite the redundancies. It was only on that day that Calvary could provide formal redundancy offers to the 1,800 workers.

The takeover was on the Sunday and, thanks to the ACT government's behaviour, they were only able to give three days notice.