Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to start by recognising that many of the public think that a grievance speech is an epic rant or a whinge session about problems that we're all facing, so tonight I'm going to make a conscious effort not to use exaggeration but to stick to cold, hard facts. I'm not going to distort any data; I'm just going to talk about infrastructure in my electorate and what we have seen over the past two years in Cowper, on the mid-north coast. Obviously regional areas, including Cowper, need better roads, better access to communications and better access to housing. There are a number of other things I'd like to discuss, such as accessible and affordable health care and child care, but, as I said, I'm going to stick to infrastructure in the electorate.

Let's take a look at the funding provided by this government for our critical roads projects in Cowper. It will be very quick, Deputy Speaker, because the fact is that there hasn't been one single new dollar since Labor came into power over two years ago. In fact, this government has actively taken away funding that was previously budgeted and promised. There was $5 million of fully costed and department approved funding that was promised to scope the best solution for the Oxley Highway at the Wrights Road and Lake Road intersections in Port Macquarie. The Oxley Highway is not only the access point to Port Macquarie from the M1; it's also, and most importantly, the access point to the Port Macquarie Base Hospital. It's also the access point to the education precincts. Every day we see accidents and near accidents at the hospital roundabout, and, concerningly, ambulances queuing in order to cross it safely. When seconds count, this simply isn't acceptable. Lives will be lost.

The fact is it was a measly $5 million, but in the 90-day review, which ended up being 180 days, it was considered that this wasn't a nation-building project. It wasn't important enough for the people of Port Macquarie. It wasn't important enough for the doctors, the nurses and the staff who fight the Wrights Road traffic every single day. It wasn't good enough to ease the congestion and the danger at the intersection. Not important enough. In the words of the minister, it was 'not of national importance'—I'm quoting her; it's not exaggeration. To the people of Port Macquarie: you are not important enough for funding of $5 million, which has been stripped away.

Then—and I'm glad the member for New England is here—there is Waterfall Way. Waterfall Way is a 62-kilometre stretch of road between the M1 and Dorrigo. It links Coffs Harbour plateau to the outlying townships and is so important to regional services in Coffs Harbour. But it's called 'Waterfall Way' for a reason: they get massive amounts of rain and are constantly subject to landslips that close the road for unscheduled and undetermined periods of time. In fact, it was closed for many months.

When the member for New England was the Deputy Prime Minister, we sat in the room with the mayor, Steve Allen; and the then member for Oxley, Melinda Pavey, and we planned for an alternative route for people from Dorrigo to take their produce, to take their cattle or just to get to work down at the hospital in Coffs Harbour. That was costed at a measly $26 million. That has been put to this government, and we've heard crickets. They don't care about the people in Bellingen, and they don't care about the people in Dorrigo. There's no infrastructure going in for the road, the alternative route, to Waterfall Way. This therefore effects families, businesses and the constituents who live in Coffs Harbour, Bellingen and Dorrigo. It is shameful that if you live outside of metropolitan areas, particularly in National Party seats, you are void of any funding from the Labor government.

Then there's the Bellingen housing project. This is something I'm really proud of. When we were in government, we—with the Royal Freemasons Benevolent Institution and the state member then, Melinda Pavey—obtained $5 million from the federal government and the state government, and the Freemasons chipped in with an aged-care facility that had been run down and was no longer being used. In the agreement, we were to put that money towards 42 one-bedroom units for women over 55 who were experiencing homelessness or escaping domestic violence—42 units. Five million dollars—it's a drop in the bucket. Because of delays and because of a 30 per cent increase in costs, we came back to this government and said: 'We need to alter the agreement. If we can't have additional funding of 30 per cent, then we're going to have to reduce the footprint to 21 units.' You would have thought that this government, which has been talking about providing housing for the most vulnerable people, would have said: 'How much do you want? How much is needed to create those additional 20 units?' But the answer was, 'No. There's no funding.' So, Minister, please don't sit there and tell me you care about vulnerable women or vulnerable people or housing for those less fortunate, when all that was required was another few million, to top up, to have another 20 units available for vulnerable women over 50 years old—because that's all it took. I think it was miserly and mean-spirited and it was because that place sits in a National Party seat. That is the exact reason that that has happened.

Just before the election, $26 million was put aside for Southern Cross University in Coffs Harbour for stage 2 of their health precinct. That health precinct was going to be an operational—I'll use this phrase—health campus. They were going to train people—as they have done up in Lismore, in the member for Page's electorate—and they were going to have occupational therapists, physiotherapists, psychologists, speech therapists and other allied health students providing services for free to the community. In Lismore alone, in one year, they saw 48,000 clients. Forty-eight thousand clients—imagine the pressure that that would take off the services in Coffs Harbour. There, you can't get in to see a psychologist; you can't find an occupational therapist; you can't get in to see a speech therapist. Yet that funding, because it was in a National Party seat, was stripped away. So now we have waiting lists and waiting lists, for all these allied services that people are desperate for, because of politics.

In summation, I don't believe anyone from the current government can dispute the facts listed here today. They're true. I ask the Labor government to stop gaslighting my community by telling them they've never been better off and that Labor cares about the regions. It simply isn't true. You're not fooling the people of regional Australia. They exist. Do your job. You must do better.