Answers raise more questions

Questions Health Minister must answer

To explain what appears to be rampant multiple voting from a limited number of computers the Health Minister Stephen Miles is quoted in The Australian as saying:

…the survey could have been affected by a mass response from hospital staff who backed the renaming of the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane

1. Does he know the IP addresses from which the votes were made?
2. Does he know that one or more of the IPs that are being kept secret are owned by Queensland Health?
3. If not, why would he suggest that Queensland Health staff would be involved in rigging a community consultation?
4. As he obviously accepts that the consultation may have been tampered with by staff employed by the state government what steps is he taking to investigate and take disciplinary action?
5. Shouldn’t Health Department staff be treating patients during work hours rather than using government computers to tamper with public consultations?
6. The minister or his staff should have known that the consultation was compromised from the beginning as it was pointed out by us and various media organisations right from the start of the process. Why didn’t he take any steps to ensure the process was fixed when it was discovered to be compromised rather than allowing it to continue to be used?
7. Opposition Health Spokesperson, Ms Ros Bates raised the potential for multiple voting in the survey with the minister on September 5, 3 days after the consultation was concluded. Did he check then to see whether significant multiple voting had occurred? If he did, what was the result? Is this why he has named Queensland Health as one possible source? If he didn’t check, why not?
8. What protocols does his department have in place to ensure that online consultations have integrity? Shouldn’t it be a condition of participation that participants undertake not to vote multiple times? Shouldn’t someone be employed to check the integrity of the system and eliminate, or flag, possible multiple voting?
9. Is he aware that the Department of Housing and Public Works is currently using commercial software supplied by Bang the Table to conduct their “Open Doors to renting reform” consultation? Was he aware of this alternative software? If not, why not? And what does this say about other departments' views of the system that he chose to use?
10. Who knew of results from the survey as they came in?
11. How could the minister not have known that multiple voting was occurring? How could he have left it unchecked unless he is either negligent, or was  complicit?

For further information, or more questions, contact Graham Young 0411 104 801.