Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Why wouldn’t I be looking for it? It is just coincidence. Those are the facilities that are needed to bind communities, the facilities to keep our kids involved in physical activity. They are the facilities that families want. There is no funding in a growth belt corridor, with 40,000 kids aged between zero and 12. It is just mind blowing.

I also want to look at an essential service in the area, the Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service. We all know that the budget had an $11 billion surplus. Do you know what? The Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service received no new money. The Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service was established in 1977 to address the legal needs of the local community. It is a free legal service, providing assistance and advice to those who cannot afford to pay the high costs of engaging a private lawyer. In the last financial year, it assisted over 7,500 people who reside in the rapidly growing areas of the city of Casey, the shire of Cardinia and Dandenong. The Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service made it clear to the federal government that it is in urgent need of funding, due to massive increases in demand for their services and rising costs. But this government again in this budget simply turned a blind eye, and the funding for the community legal service this year will not even keep pace with inflation—meaning that the Casey Cardinia Community Legal Service will be in an even worse position.

No meaningful increase in funding in a decade from this government has already taken its toll on this legal service. Earlier this year, the service had no choice but to cut its hours, with its principal solicitor cutting down from full time to 4.5 days per week. At a time when very hardworking families in Holt are under enormous financial pressure—from interest rate rises, from petrol price rises, from increased child-care fees—access to free legal services is vital. The lack of funding from the government for this particular service means that many families are having to be turned away or put on very long waiting lists. It indicates to me and to a lot of the people down there that the government seems to be completely out of touch with the lives of working families in Holt.

I would also like to touch on a couple of other issues in the time remaining. One pertains to doctor shortages. I have painted a very strong picture of the substantial growth that occurs in my area and the adjoining federal seats. The shortage of doctors in Holt has hit crisis point, with just one full-time GP for 1,833 people. These are statistics compiled by the Dandenong District Division of General Practice, which oversees this area. The Commonwealth health department regards areas with a ratio of 1,400 people per equivalent full-time GP as areas of need. The ratio in Holt is 30 per cent higher than this figure. The ratio of 1,833 people per GP means Holt now has the fifth highest doctor shortage in Victoria and the 12th highest in Australia. Families in Holt are seeing the impact of this government’s neglect as they face very long waiting lists to see a GP, particularly when their children are ill and they struggle to find any doctor outside of business hours. I have seen this for the number of years that I have been representing my electorate. They wind up in the emergency departments of state government funded hospitals.

The chronic shortage of doctors in Holt means that it is more than an area in need; it is an area that requires decisive action. Yet there was no funding for after-hours medical services to take the pressure off emergency departments in this area and, further, the government has also ripped $1.5 million out of the More Doctors for Outer Metropolitan Areas program. The concern about whether or not GP training is adequate has been raised by me and by representatives from the Dandenong division of general practice. They are finding it more and more difficult to attract doctors to the area. The incentives that the government has put forward are just not adequate. They need more doctors because they are going to start running out of doctors. I have heard really disturbing figures of, say, one GP to every 3,000 or 4,000 people in the next four or five years if this decline continues, and that is completely unacceptable.

I want to take the opportunity to also talk about the fantastic service that has been provided by the Casey North Community Information and Support Service and their struggle to get appropriate funding. The Department of Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs through the Stronger Families and Communities Strategy has a funding program called Local Answers. Local Answers is a $137 million program, which is funded over five years. On three separate occasions, the Casey North Community Information and Support Service—which provides counselling services, emergency relief and advocacy, to name just a few activities for disadvantaged members needing support in the city of Casey—has been unsuccessful in getting funding through this program.

It was a service focused on low-income families experiencing relationship problems. It was an intervention and prevention model. It provided support to families who had experienced separation in order to avoid economic and financial crisis. It was aimed at families with young children and young parents on low incomes. It would have assisted over 3,000 families in my electorate. No local funding was forthcoming through Local Answers in this area where the rate of family breakdown is an issue identified by all levels of government. No funding was forthcoming through the Local Answers program in an area which 65 new families call their home every week. No new funding was forthcoming in an area where families are under extreme financial pressure due to interest rates. It just goes to show that in this budget the government has ignored families in Holt. (Time expired)

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