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

Today Senator Nash’s private senators’ bill, which sought to address the unfair changes Labor made to the independent youth allowance criteria last year, was passed through the Senate. This has been a big win for so many in my electorate of Calare—in particular, students, families and communities in the inner regional areas: places like Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow, Oberon, Blayney and the east side of Molong. In fact, almost the whole of the electorate is classed as inner regional. Since 1 January my office has had numerous complaints from concerned students, families and educators regarding the changes to the criteria. The full reality of the impact the changes are having is now being realised and many are struggling to cope, struggling to plan and wondering how they will get to university. Even if you live in the regional towns of Orange or Bathurst, in most cases it is more than likely that you will have to live away from home to complete your tertiary education. This is not political. Independent youth allowance is a basic necessity for regional students who want to complete tertiary education. The independent youth allowance debacle has gone on long enough and I am pleased to hear that the Independents supported the coalition in the Senate to pass this bill. I hope that the Independents in the House of Representatives will also rise to support the bill and show their electorates that they have students’ interests at heart.

Moving into 2011, the Calare electorate has moved to the Western New South Wales Local Health Network, and I am very pleased to say that we have seen some exciting developments. Whether to do with the movement to the local health network or not, there are some great changes happening. St Vincent’s Private Hospital is set to reopen as Bathurst Private Hospital on the grounds of Charles Sturt University. We recently lost St Vincent’s, which was a tragedy for Bathurst and the whole region because of the area it helped the Bathurst Hospital to serve. Its not existing means overloading Bathurst Hospital and that the spillover from Lithgow cannot go there or anywhere else. To place the new private hospital at the university has obvious educational and other future benefits for us. The $7 million Wellness House for Bathurst is also in the works. It will provide a one-stop shop for health services in Bathurst.

In Orange, the new Aboriginal Medical Service, which I was pleased to attend the opening of, was the first centre of its type in the region, and the model of care is the only one of its type in Australia. We are a region that is really ahead on trying to get more people of Aboriginal descent in as nurses and doctors, particularly those with the ability to do nursing in Bathurst and Dubbo. The new Orange Base Hospital is presumably only six weeks out from opening. A report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that health services have become less accessible for people in rural and remote areas, with major deficits in primary, GP, diagnostic, specialist and out-of-hospital care. While the developments that are happening in the region, private or otherwise, are great, these findings certainly do make us realise that Orange is the only serious centre of health in Western New South Wales.

Mr Speaker, I am also very pleased to tell you that over the next month or so we will be opening an electorate office in Bathurst to better service the new parts of the Calare electorate—Bathurst, Oberon and Blayney. That will make the opportunity of the people of those areas to come to me and mine to communicate with them much better.

I must congratulate a Lithgow butcher from Sunnyridge Valley Meats on paying $283 for lamb—as far as I can see, an Australian record—at Rydal Show last Saturday. Well done. It is nice to see them coming up with a record that the big saleyards cannot yet match.