Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about the many broken promises from the member for Richmond. During the last federal election, the member for Richmond distributed a pamphlet entitled ‘3 good reasons to vote for Justine Elliot’. Let me tell you about three failures from the member for Richmond.

The first failure: last year the previous government approved a $110,000 grant for the proposed Tweed skate park. This park would provide a recreation area for young people to hang out and skate together in Tweed Heads. In May this year, the Rudd government withdrew the funding. Then, two weeks later, it reinstated it. The member for Richmond is quoted in the Tweed Daily News as saying, ‘This shows how much we can achieve when we all work together.’ Well, does it? If that is the case, I wonder why the Rudd government wrote to Tweed Shire Council on 1 August advising it had once again changed its position on the funding. The Howard government put up the money; the Rudd government opposed it. But then they supported it; but then they opposed it again. I think the residents of Tweed need to ask these questions. Are these the people running our country? Is the Prime Minister, who is not actually here at the moment, really running the country?

The second failure: the member for Richmond was elected on a promise that Kevin Rudd would fix our hospitals. Unfortunately, cutbacks to Tweed hospitals are making it unsafe for patients. The member for Richmond had her photo on the front page of the Tweed Daily News on 26 July after officially opening 30 new beds at the Tweed Hospital—30 beds, I might point out, which remain empty to this day. Doctors at the Murwillumbah and Tweed hospitals are in open revolt against government cutbacks. What does the member for Richmond, elected on a promise to fix our hospitals, do about it? Does she immediately get on the phone and call the New South Wales minister for health and ask the minister to keep a promise made by the Labor Party? No. Instead, she blames the state Labor government—members of her own party! It beggars belief that the member for Richmond would pose for the media outside Murwillumbah hospital and pose for the media inside Tweed Hospital, and then, when push came to shove, not be able to bring herself to keep an election promise and ‘fix our hospitals and end the blame game’.

The third failure: yesterday the Senate passed the coalition’s Urgent Relief for Single Age Pensioners Bill. This measure would provide welcome and much needed relief for over 7,000 single age pensioners, single service age pensioners and widow B pensioners to the tune of $30 a week in the electorate of Richmond. The member for Richmond and her colleagues call extra money in the pocket of our struggling pensioners a ‘stunt’. Australia’s pensioners disagree. The Chief Executive of National Seniors Australia, Michael O’Neill, had this to say:

For these older Australians an immediate increase represents more than a steak, rather than baked beans, for dinner …

As we all know, earlier this evening the coalition moved to introduce the Urgent Relief for Single Age Pensioners Bill into the House of Representatives. The Labor government used its majority to ensure the bill was not introduced, treating older Australians with utter contempt.

Those were three broken promises from the member of Richmond and her government. I wonder how many more broken promises we are going to see from the member for Richmond. Today is a sorry day, in particular for the 7,000 age pensioners in the electorate of Richmond who will not receive any relief from the cost-of-living pressures that they are all feeling. I feel for them. We are fighting for them. We on this side of the House believe age pensioners in this country deserve some relief from those cost-of-living pressures.

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