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

The member for Dickson is not keen for me to finish this sentence because he is aware that the state Liberal MP for the area, Frank Alban, was there with the member for Hasluck and me to inspect the plans, because of course this is a joint project between the Western Australian Liberal government and our government. In fact, Mr Frank Alban, the local member, threatened—and I will quote his somewhat colourful language—quite serious bodily harm to any Liberal who dared to question the future of the clinic. This Midland superclinic is going to be in the old railway yards, and he said that any Liberal who wanted to oppose the clinic would be ‘hanging from the rafters of the railway yards’. I would not like to go that far, but I do think that he is clearly making a point that people who understand the services that are being provided in the community support them. Unfortunately, those opposite do not.

Now I want to talk little bit more about the Strathpine superclinic, which is of course part of the question asked of me by the member for Longman. Since January, when this clinic was opened, to 26 May—the latest data that we have—there have been more than 17,000 presentations at this clinic: 11,300 GP consultations, 1,800 pathology consultations and 3,900 allied and nursing consultations. You have to wonder, given these extraordinary numbers, how it is that the member for Dickson, on a margin of just 217 votes, does not think it a good idea to provide thousands of services to his constituents in Strathpine. There are not only six new GPs at the clinics; there is a new female GP—

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