Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital name change survey ‘rigged’
The State Opposition has slammed the Government after a Right to Information request revealed the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital name change survey may have been rigged.
QLD Politics
Don't miss out on the headlines from QLD Politics. Followed categories will be added to My News.
THE State Opposition has slammed the Government after a Right to Information request revealed the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital name change survey may have been rigged.
Opposition Leader Deb Frecklington said the Labor Government had been caught “red-handed fudging statistics”.
“A Right to Information request has shown multiple votes had been recorded from the same IP address,” she said.
An IP address is used to identify an individual internet connection.
The online poll results were used by the Government as evidence of public support for changing the name to Queensland Children’s Hospital. It found 62 per cent support for the name change, from more than 38,000 votes.
But a Nine News report said nearly 18,000 of the 23,000 yes votes came from the same 74 IP addresses, including four that were used to vote yes more than 1000 times, and 46 used to vote yes more than 100 times.
Ms Frecklington said Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk was “out of touch and power has gone to her head”.
“Annastacia Palaszczuk should immediately apologise to the family, restore Lady Cilento’s name to the hospital, and start concentrating on the healthcare of our sick kids,” Ms Frecklington said.
“Queensland children should have money spent on their health care, but Labor is spending millions on dodgy surveys and ripping the Cilento name down from the hospital.
“Labor’s Steven Miles should offer a public apology to the Cilento family.”
Lady Cilento’s only living child Dr David Cilento, 82, previously told The Courier-Mail changing the name would dishonour a person who did so much for Queensland and Australia.
“The excuse given that the public thinks the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital is a private hospital is a bit strange,” he said.
“It seems to me there is some other agenda here.”
A Department of Housing and Public Works spokesperson said: “The Get Involved website has been used by successive governments for engagement and consultation with the Queensland public.
“It is managed and supported by HPW on behalf of the departments using the website for consultation.
“Most large organisations and internet providers filter internet traffic through servers and those servers present an IP address.
“This means that multiple people may use the same IP address.”
The Cilento family issued a statement on Monday morning expressing their disgust over the poll.
“All we have ever wanted is for our grandmother’s name to remain on the hospital and for her legacy to continue to be honoured,” the statement read.
“She’s rightly considered to be national treasure and deserves to be treated in that way.
“As a family we’re astounded that this government would use her as a political football.
“We’d like to see a full investigation into the veracity of the poll and who sanctioned it. There are clearly no grounds for the hospital renaming to go ahead.”
$135m health bungle: Minister’s apology to affected businesses
Health Minister Steven Miles has apologised to businesses that have suffered delays because of the new Queensland Health payment system.
Hundreds of staff underpaid at Queensland utility
A Queensland Government-owned utility corporation has underpaid hundreds of its senior staff for more than a decade in a bungle that could have ripped off up to a quarter of its workforce.