September 3, 2018 Government cover up erodes confidence in our health system The State Government’s failure to provide three of six letters of resignation from North Metropolitan Board members raises serious questions around the functioning of the State’s largest health service, according to Shadow Health Minister Sean L’Estrange. Mr L’Estrange said the release of just three heavily redacted resignation letters following the resignation of six NMHS board members in the six months from March this year can only lead the Opposition to believe the Government has something to hide. “While Health Minister Roger Cook admitted today the redactions in the documents was a failure of Premier Mark McGowan’s commitment to ‘gold-standard transparency’, this issue cannot be swiped aside as a minor slippage of standards,” Mr L’Estrange said. “The Minister failed to tell us why the Government had withheld, in their entirety, three letters and only admitted to their existence under parliamentary questioning. “To have six members of the board resign in six months is extraordinary in itself, while some of the few lines in the letters we were given access to raise even more questions around transparency and service provision.” Mr L’Estrange said the Liberal Opposition has applied for an internal review of its Freedom of Information request, in particular why three letters had not been included in the initial response. “What is the Government trying to hide? “Given the recent Corruption and Crime Commission report into bribery within the North Metropolitan Health Service this Government should be doing all it can to restore public confidence in the service, cover-ups like this only further erode public confidence in the administration of our health system.” Ends |
