Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to remind all Victorians to be very cautious of the Liberal Party’s Trojan Horse of unfunded, uncosted promises that tend to arrive just before an election. Victorians will never forget the man who, as federal health minister, ripped $372 million from the Victorian health budget, the same man who went on 5AA and said:

We’re not getting rid of any super clinics … we’re just not proceeding with new so-called super clinics, and let’s be under no illusion about what’s happening here …

Who was that, you ask. Those were, of course, the words of the Leader of the Opposition. The member for Dickson also criticised the creation of GP superclinics across the country when he said:

One thing that we won’t be doing is adopting Labor’s model with their GP superclinics.

Lo and behold, in the last couple of weeks before the federal election, the member for Dickson comes to my electorate and says, ‘We will build a Wallan superclinic.’ The rotten apples do not fall far from the tree.

I see the Victorian Liberals are following the footsteps of their federal buddies with more false promises for my community. The Victorian shadow health minister has come out with a desperate, 11^th-hour, half-baked, uncosted promise, saying the coalition would support $10 million for improving the Kilmore hospital on the condition that the federal government contributes $10 million as well. I welcome the new-found interest in the Kilmore hospital, but I am equally amazed that, in his 10 years in parliament, the shadow minister has not once ever supported the hospital or ever sought funding for it. I remind people that funding for the Kilmore District Hospital has increased 166 per cent since Labor came to office and this year’s funding of $8.9 million is $5.5 million more than the hospital received in 1999, when the last coalition government cut funding, cut services and called my community the toenail of the state. When it comes to health, the Liberal Party’s actions speak volumes more than their words. (Time expired)