Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was prompted to rise today because of my awareness of the state hospital systems in regional Western Australia. They are in an absolutely deplorable condition and, with the Prime Minister’s announcement of financial assistance to the Mersey hospital near Devonport, Tasmania, there is now a call from Western Australia that the federal government may wish to contribute financially to the running and rescue of Western Australian hospitals. I would like members of this House to be aware of some of the disastrous situations in Western Australia that we may be asked to contend with and fund to once again pull the tardy Western Australian Labor government out of its financial doldrums.

There are about 80 hospitals operating across regional Western Australia and the majority of them are in my electorate. There is a very modern hospital in Karratha—certainly it was built after 1978. It is supposedly well equipped, cyclone built and able to act as a shelter. It is a very safe building, with every modern convenience. It is well staffed and has great facilities, but it cannot deliver a baby today. Women living in the Karratha/Roebourne/Dampier/Wickham area now have to go to Port Hedland or Perth to have a child. It is a deplorable state of affairs—and it gets worse.

Tom Price Hospital, which was always going to be there whilst the services at Paraburdoo Hospital were reduced, is now threatened with closure. Paraburdoo Hospital, which was once a thriving hospital delivering babies in the community and attending to incidents at the Paraburdoo mine—and, of course, the occasional road accident and weekend-evening trauma that is unfortunately suffered in some of my constituencies—is doing a wonderful job. That hospital now has just one person on duty overnight. On the weekends, because of state failure once again, the two police officers in Paraburdoo shift from Paraburdoo on a Friday evening and do not return until Monday morning. So you have a hospital with one staff member on duty all night. That person has to answer a call at the hospital emergency door from possibly a group of people under the influence of some chemical who may have done damage to themselves or suffered damage from somebody else. They knock at the door and one person in the hospital has to make a decision as to whether they open that door and put their own welfare at risk, or deny access to the person and perhaps deny them the treatment they need to sustain their life. They cannot call on the local police to come down and assist, should it be necessary, because the nearest police are in Tom Price, about 45 minutes away or more.

All of these services are funded by the state government. The state government are culpable for this disastrous level of servicing in Western Australia. Now that we have announced funding for the Mersey hospital, they say, firstly, ‘We condemn you for daring to dabble in state affairs because the Constitution says that we are rightly looking after the hospitals in our state.’ But then they say, ‘But we really expect you to fund us more to look after our hospitals.’ When we came up with a practical solution of direct funding we were criticised for dabbling. So it is a no-win situation for us and, from a public relations perspective, it is a win-win situation for the states. I have outlined what a dreadful job the state government are doing in a couple of places with state funded and state directed regional services, be they hospitals, police forces or educational facilities, right across the electorate of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Yet the Labor Party, with their mismanagement and their inability to coordinate a vision for the future, aspire to take over federal government. They think they are fit to rule this country and to head it into the future for the good of all people in this nation. Their track record in the states indicates that they would be battling to run a good booze-up in a pub.

I would like to bring to the attention of the House just some of the consequences if—and I underline ‘if’—this Labor Party took over federal government. Many of the listeners, of course, will not be aware that after 13 years of Labor government the debt was increased from some $16 billion to $96 billion. Thirteen years under a Labor government saw an additional $90 billion worth of debt suffered by every Australian. No wonder interest rates were high: $90 billion worth of extra borrowing by the government put pressure on the availability of funds for all Australians. The price had to go up. Just watch them do it again.

Not many people here would realise that one of the checks and balances put in place when the GST legislation was put together was that governments in federal control could not abuse the system and suddenly put consumers at a disadvantage by increasing the percentage of the GST. It was agreed, by all concerned, that the only way there could be an increase in the GST percentage was by agreement between all state and territory governments and both the Senate and the House of Representatives federally. That would be the only circumstance under which the GST percentage could be increased. We have that situation looming. Right now we have all states and territories under Labor control and the possibility of Labor being elected to federal government. Watch out for any attempt by the states to get their hands on more money via collection of the GST.

Something else that comes to my attention is the fact that in this election year of 2007, with our youth for the very first time going to vote and to exercise their wonderful democratic powers and advantages in this nation, anyone aged between 18 and 29 will never have suffered in this country under a Labor government. I say to everyone: the Labor years were hard years. I bore bridging finance interest at 24 per cent. I know how hard it was. I worked for a company where there was ‘no ticket, no start’. I had to be a member of the BLF, the dreaded Builders Labourers Federation. So anyone who is unaware of the drudgery and the depths to which a Labor government can drag us should come and see me—I will give them the goods.

More importantly, some people out there are saying: ‘Don’t worry, MPs of this country. Don’t worry, leaders of this country. The Liberal Party—with the coalition, of course—has held the reins now for nearly 12 years. We believe in a fair go in Aussie, so why not let the other mob have a go? After all, it is fair.’ We know what they did in 13 years of government: they ruined this country. It took us the best part of this 12 years to bring it back, to put it ahead and to put it in a condition where everyone had a job, everyone had an opportunity and there was something to look forward to in this nation. It is not a footy match. It is not a matter of being fair and giving the other mob a go, because they will fail. They have a track record of failure, and they will do it again. So to everyone who has a love of this country and a belief in its future: get a good head on your shoulders, realise how bad it could be with a Labor government federally and make sure that you stick with a good government, a government that is led by this coalition of the Liberal and National parties.

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