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

The relentless attack on ordinary Australians by the Gillard government—and the previous Rudd government—has moved to health care once again this week with another broken promise. Labor's disastrous decision to reintroduce this legislation will have frightening consequences for the provision of health care right across Australia, none more so than in regional Australia, country Australia or the bush.

Our health is the one thing we value above all else. It does not matter how successful you are in life: your family's health and your health is the number one item. In the bush especially we do not have the same access to health care as our city counterparts. We know that and we accept it as fact of life. We know we have to look after ourselves because, should we get sick, there are a lot of hurdles to overcome before we even get to hospital. There are significant distances to travel, which is a physical thing we have to get over and a cost. We have fewer services and specialists to cater for our needs. What is more, by and large our regional hospitals are vastly under resourced, understaffed and underfunded. An example is in the Central West of New South Wales in the electorate of Calare—in fact everywhere in western New South Wales—where there is only one serious health facility west of the Blue Mountains and that is the new Orange Hospital. It has a lot of doctors and a lot of specialists and has to look after the western central region of New South Wales. And heaps of the little hospitals around it have closed in the last decade.

I guess we should not be surprised at the reintroduction, against their promise prior to the 2007 election—

See this speech in context