Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forde, who has a particular interest in health reform. We recently visited Logan Hospital together where millions of dollars of investment are going into a new emergency department. I know he takes an interest in these issues. As part of the health reform commission’s report, to date six consultations have been undertaken by the Prime Minister and me, and several more are coming in the following weeks. In fact, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Ageing are visiting Nepean Hospital on Friday, and I am going to the Gold Coast on Monday to host a consultation at Griffith University with many specialists and health professionals from the Gold Coast region.

As the diligent minister that I believe I am, I made sure that I read the material in the local papers. I took it upon myself to make sure that I read the local papers from the Gold Coast and I stumbled upon some very interesting material in the Gold Coast Bulletin. The Gold Coast Bulletin covers some comments about the shadow health spokesperson. You might have thought this would aid our discussion on Monday about health reform, that it might have been about health debates, about health policy or about health investments. But, in fact, it is an article called ‘Parachutes ready’ by Sue Lappeman and it is about how the Liberal Party is ensuring that the member for Dickson, the shadow health spokesperson, can be parachuted into the seat of McPherson.

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