Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, so Zahra got that one for me! Except I go back before you and Zahra with the first $26 million. Importantly, this hospital is sitting on the cusp of an explosion of population, a 40 per cent increase. The member for La Trobe would know that Casey is really struggling at the moment. It has backups, as I know. My nephew went there the other night for a cut across his head—I will not tell you how he got it—and had to wait four hours at Casey. The family gave up in the end and went on to Dandy Valley, which is fine. That is fine for families like ours that can afford to do it. It is not fine for people who come to Casey for that initial care. That is really important. So what happens is that people are gravitating to the Warragul hospital—from Moe, Leongatha, Wonthaggi, in the south, and Neerim, in the north—for all the services that they provide. They provided 87,000 services last year. We expected that there would be a 20 per cent increase in need at the hospital—and there has been a 40 per cent one.

The minister has heard all this before from hospital after hospital after hospital. Because of what the nation has done we are now ending up with a whole lot of hospitals that are not ready. I am not coming in here and saying this is a Russell Broadbent proposal and therefore it must be a good proposal. I have to mount an argument as to why that particular hospital should get the benefit of what we do as a nation and as a state. I have got to get the state bureaucrats on side, the state government on side and the federal government on side to fund that Warragul hospital. That is a hard job. It is a hard job for any of us but we have to mount the arguments. It is no good saying, ‘I want this and a political fix of $200 million.’ It does not work because it offends everybody. What I need to do here, and what I am trying to do, is mount the argument that this is an area that is going to have to be addressed and that I would rather a new hospital than a rebuild. That is what I have been putting to this parliament today.

Debate (on motion by Mr Albanese) adjourned.

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