Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, as you know, I do not often get up here and have a gripe, but today I am going to. Nearly two years ago, in the lead-up to the federal election, the Labor Party promised the people of Belmont a Medicare office. More than 18 months have passed since the election and the people of Belmont still have no Medicare office. I am very disappointed for the people of Belmont, in my electorate of Swan, that the government has still not delivered on this election promise. We were told this important community service would be a top priority for the Rudd Labor administration. What is unforgivable is how the government has consistently tried to mask its inactivity with a series of announcements, reannouncements and misleading claims to local people. Since being elected, I have arranged for the Minister for Human Services to be questioned on no less than three occasions on this issue. The best response that was put forward by the minister was:

Decisions on timing have not been made yet.

So you can imagine my surprise when I opened my local newspaper recently to find, out of the blue, a photograph of the Minister for Human Services with Eric Ripper—the Leader of the Opposition in WA—and a Labor party hack from Slater and Gordon outside an office with a hastily erected Medicare sign declaring:

We promised residents in the electorate at the last election that we would deliver on this service and that’s what we have done.

It was a nice photo opportunity for the state Labor Party leader—whose continuing role in that position is at best tenuous—and it also promoted the favourite for the role of Labor candidate for the electorate of Swan at the next election. I cannot see why either of them would want to be associated with this government’s failure to deliver to the people of Belmont. It would be like a ball and chain for them to be associated with this dismal failure. Anyway, according to the minister, the government has delivered on its promise to the people of Belmont. However, there is still no Medicare office in Belmont. The minister has still not made any decisions on timing. This was nothing more than a media stunt. It was another reannouncement. Under the headline ‘Yes, Minister’ the West Australian described this announcement as ‘Monty Pythonesque’. The new Medicare branch is absent—to borrow from Monty Python, it is a ‘non-office’. The minister does not know where he is going to put the office or when it will open.

This would be funny if it were not for the fact that many Belmont residents find it difficult to make the journey to the nearest Medicare office in Booragoon and Cannington to claim their benefits. For these people, a Medicare office is essential and long overdue. I have therefore started a campaign for the government to open the Belmont Medicare office it promised before the next decade begins. So far I have received at my office almost 1,000 written responses of support from Belmont residents, which is remarkable. That is how big the issue is. So I ask the government to listen to the people of Belmont. They do not want any more reannouncements. They do not want any more media stunts. They simply want what was promised to them nearly two years ago by the Labor Party. There is no excuse for any further delay. I call on the minister to meet his obligations and provide the Medicare office to the people of Belmont, who are so desperately in need of it.