John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

May I join with the member for Pearce in acknowledging the role of our armed forces. I have just spent Anzac Day in Kandahar and have had the privilege of being with our troops and with representatives from all the coalition forces there—a magnificent body of men and women doing an incredibly professional job. I will later join with the condolences in recognising Corporal Hopkins, Sergeant Till and all the others who have lost their lives or their health while working on behalf of Australia in the region.

I would also really like to bring the House’s attention to comments made by Kevin Rudd, before he became Prime Minister, about the buck stopping with him on health. While it would seem to be a New South Wales problem, the Emergency Rescue Helicopter Service based in Orange services the biggest area of New South Wales, but it is being totally mismanaged. It works only in daylight hours—and for only part of that—and it is a short-range helicopter. However, Wollongong has a 24-hour, winch equipped, long-range helicopter service. I am happy that Wollongong has that—as indeed they should—but I do not see why western New South Wales, which has a helicopter based in Orange that is called out more than the Wollongong one, would not have the same. I am happy for Wollongong but I defend the right of my people west of the mountains to have the same service.

The government will not say what they are going to do and they have obviously decided to leave it as it is. I must say that western and central western New South Wales has risen up in arms, as indeed they might, on this issue. Nearly 6,000 people in a very short space of time have signed a petition—the Country Women’s Association and many individuals have sent in page upon page of petitions to the state government calling upon them to rectify the situation. Some of these people are from as far away from Orange as Nyngan, Coolabah, Condobolin, Lake Cargelligo, Bourke and Hillston. We are talking about people dependent upon a helicopter service which is hundreds of kilometres from them, and quite often it has to get over the mountains to get to safety. Even a person in Orange, two minutes flying time from the service, may have died because the helicopter was not equipped to deal with a particular emergency. People have had to wait about three hours after an incident has happened for a helicopter to come from Sydney. It is not good enough; it is not fair and 6,000 signatures are going to tell the New South Wales government that in very short order. (Time expired)

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