Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This evening I want to raise three items of community dissatisfaction with the state government in Victoria. As we approach the eve of the election I have been approached by the community in relation to all of these issues as they have not had satisfaction from the state government and they wished the issues to be raised within the jurisdiction of the federal parliament.

First, on the Mornington Peninsula, we have seen dangerous dereliction of the emergency services and in particular the ambulance services. Martin Dixon, the state member, and I have previously raised these issues, but the state government has been utterly inadequate. We have seen a stark reminder of how the emergency services are underresourced. In particular, police recently had to take a Sorrento woman who had overdosed to hospital in their squad car because the nearest ambulance was in Keysborough, 40 minutes away. Secondly, there was an 87-year-old woman suffering from severe respiratory distress who had to wait 41 minutes for an ambulance in Rye, with potentially catastrophic consequences. In addition, in the same week it emerged that Ambulance Victoria had been unable to attend more than 60 calls over the course of a single evening, more broadly, due to a lack of resources. These are life-threatening incidents, all of which have posed risks to constituents in the electorate of Flinders at the federal level and in particular in the electorate of Nepean at the state level. It is time for a dramatic overhaul of the emergency services. The workers, the ambulance operators, the drivers and the paramedics do a magnificent job. They have simply not been given the overarching support services and resources needed to carry out their job. The ‘tooth to tail ratio’—to use military terms—is unacceptably low. In emergency services terms it means that there is not enough grunt given where it is needed.

This brings me to the second of the complaints within the electorate, which concerns the Cardinia Primary School. The school, through the auspices of the school council president, recently approached me. They had a deal with the state and federal governments under the BER program that they would not lose their basketball court. That deal has been broken. I was called in after they had no luck with the state government and after the new member for La Trobe, Laura Smyth, refused to visit the school. I urge her to visit the school, which is on my northern border and her southern border. It is technically on her side of the road, but, in the absence of adequate support, I have treated it as a school within my electorate. The school has lost the basketball court. It is a breach of the agreement, it is a fraud on the school and it is a disappointment to the children. The member for La Trobe should visit the school as a matter of priority, and the state and federal governments must honour their deal immediately.

Finally, I recently visited the Koo Wee Rup Secondary College, a great school with tremendous teachers but inadequate buildings. It was built to accommodate 600 students but it has an enrolment of 1,000 or so and it is growing fast. The dedicated staff, under the leadership of Principal Kym Bridgford—and let me make it clear that he was not the complainant—have to deal every day with dilapidated classrooms, a minuscule library, a shortage of toilets and changing facilities, cramped staff facilities and a canteen dating back to the Second World War. It is time for a complete rebuild of that school. I am delighted that the state opposition has pledged $7 million to commence the rebuilding of the school, should it take office on 27 November. I would like the state government to match it, and that way the school community will be protected, whoever wins.