Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The clock is ticking because on 20 September that hospital will be downgraded—Senator George Campbell, make no mistake about that. Let us look at what happened at the Ouse public rally on 31 July that I again attended with Ben Quin, the federal Liberal candidate for the Lyons electorate, who is standing up for these isolated communities. Where is federal Labor; where is state Labor? They have a contrary view, a contrary objective.

At that meeting was the Tasmanian opposition leader, Will Hodgman, the state opposition health spokesman, Brett Whiteley, and the opposition legal spokesman, Michael Hodgman—no Labor MP, state or federal, to be seen. They did not have the guts to come and face the community and say, ‘Yes. We want to downgrade your health services right here.’ I did a letterbox drop to support those efforts at Ouse and Rosebery, and they were both supported by Ben Quin, the federal Liberal candidate. Who did we meet at Ouse? Who came to this public meeting? We had Mrs Weeding; she is 94 years old. She is a resident of the Ouse aged-care facilities. She has been married for 75 years. She was born and bred in that community and now she is being kicked out with her husband from that aged-care facility in Ouse. It stinks. It is shameful.