John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Far be it from me to suggest a political motivation for anything, but I do welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is taking cabinet to Bathurst next month in November. I welcome the fact that he is going there because this is the man who in late 2007 stood up and said ‘The buck stops with me’ on health. Twice he said that in the lead-up to the 2007 election, once when he said that he would fix hospitals and then when he actually said that he would have all that sorted out by the end of June of this year, 2009—three months ago. If there is one place in Australia where health needs fixing up it is in the Greater Western Area Health Service, which has been looked after tenderly by the New South Wales Labor government—his colleagues in the Labor Party—over the last dozen or so years. I hope the Prime Minister takes the opportunity while he is in Bathurst, seeing as he is not likely to be the area again, to do a few things. First, I have written to his ministers about the helicopter service there, which has been totally ignored. There is no 24-hour service looking after the whole of western New South Wales out of Orange.

I wrote to the Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery, Hon. Warren Snowden, who said it was nothing to do with him. He flicked it to the Minister for Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, Anthony Albanese—that well-known carer of regional affairs. Why would the person responsible for rural and regional health, Indigenous health and regional service delivery, which is everything that the rescue ambulance helicopter service in Orange is about, say this is nothing to do with him? I cannot believe it. However, if he is not in cabinet and Anthony Albanese is, one assumes the Prime Minister will tell him to fix that issue while they are in Bathurst.

But they can do more. The Prime Minister also said he would fix hospitals in Australia. We have enormous issues. We have Forbes and Parkes hospitals, which the state Labor government promised to fix and renew—but they are not. The Prime Minister should go and have a look at them while he is there. He should have a look at the Bathurst hospital which has been an exercise in ridiculous building and inefficiency and while he is there he can fix that. And he can go to Cobar where the hospital will not accept women about to have babies, making them drive all the way to Dubbo and possibly have their children on the side of the road. I hope the Prime Minister looks at it. (Time expired)