Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

How many times has the Prime Minister said that he can work with the state Labor governments? It has been over and over and over again. We are still waiting. When is the work going to begin?

We are watching Mr Rudd, and the federal Labor government is apparently watching pretty much everything. We have Fuelwatch, watching petrol prices; ‘grocery watch’, looking at household items—and we know what a disaster that has been—‘school watch’, which was in last week’s education funding announcement; ‘sports watch’, which was in last week’s sporting structure reform announcement; ‘Asia watch’, the Asia-Pacific union announcement earlier this year; ‘nuke watch’, keeping an eye on the nuclear disarmament group; and, of course, ‘state watch’ or COAG. These are good examples of Labor being all talk and no action. What are the Prime Minister and his government actually doing to ensure the adequate provision of health services and road infrastructure for regional communities? Absolutely nothing. After all those promises we heard running up to the election, we have nothing. Maybe we will end up with ‘bush watch’.

Speaking of watches, I think if the Prime Minister were a watch he would be a fake Rolex—lacking in detail, lacking in quality and lacking in craftsmanship. It is a cheap substitute for the real thing. From a distance, it does look like the real thing, but it is not.

In my state of New South Wales we are witnessing a health system in crisis. Across the state rarely a day will pass without reference to a health system crisis in the inadequate standard of care, staffing shortfalls, lack of bed availability, long hospital waiting times, non-availability of specialist services and complete lack of adequate infrastructure. If you are looking for examples of a crisis, you need look no further than the transcripts from the 34 public hearings which were held between February and May this year and conducted as part of the special commission of inquiry into acute care services in New South Wales public hospitals.

And the state of roads across New South Wales is no better. There are serious delays to projects getting underway and, even worse, they are finishing well beyond planned completion dates and there are huge budget blowouts due to gross mismanagement by New South Wales Labor.

It is interesting to look at specific communities. I would like to have a look today at Port Macquarie as an example of federal Labor’s inability to deliver health and road infrastructure in the region. Keep in mind that before the election Mr Rudd was constantly talking about working with the state Labor governments and ending the blame game. The hospital situation in Port Macquarie is in crisis. The Port Macquarie Base Hospital was built to handle around 12,000 to 14,000 presentations. By the end of the last financial year there had been an astonishing 31,000-plus presentations at the emergency department alone. We have had problems with elective surgery and cancellations. A local doctor said that almost 60 per cent of the 981 cancellations in the past financial year could have been avoided by increasing the hospital’s capacity. We can see that the base hospital is operating at more than double its capacity.

The people of Port Macquarie were, until recently, represented in the New South Wales state parliament by the Independent state member Mr Robert Oakeshott. In 2003, Mr Oakeshott committed to:

Making certain that appropriate levels of funding are provided to Port Macquarie Base Hospital, so that local residents can make full use of the excellent medical services available. This will include advocating for additional funds to reduce the inequitably high waiting list at Port Macquarie Base Hospital.

He also promised a fourth wing to increase the capacity of the hospital. On these, Mr Oakeshott has failed to deliver time after time. Why? Because, like Labor, the Independent state member for Port Macquarie talked tough but failed to deliver because he had no influence on the state Labor government. The federal Labor government cannot work with the state to produce any decent health outcomes and it is failing the people of those regions.

Interestingly, we are seeing, in the roads situation up there, enormous problems for people in the region. There have been huge blowouts over the last 10 years and gross mismanagement from an incompetent Labor government—the Labor government that Mr Oakeshott says he works so cooperatively with. Interestingly, he was recently in the paper photographed with Mr Albanese talking about roads. So the roads to Port Macquarie have been paved with disaster. For the Independent previous state member to say that he has delivered for the community in Port Macquarie is absolutely false. We can see that he continually said how closely he worked with Labor and how much he would deliver for the regions. Well, there has been absolutely nothing. Federal Labor has had absolutely no ability to address the funding for health and roads that is needed in the area.

We have a situation where the previous Independent state member is saying how much he could deliver for the region. It is an absolute falsehood because we only have to look at the state of the hospitals and the state of the roads to see that all of those promises that the Prime Minister put forward before the election campaign have not been delivered on. He said, ‘We will fix the hospitals.’ He has not been able to do it and he has not been able to work with the state Labor government to do it. The previous Independent state member had no ability to do it either. He claimed he could work cooperatively with Labor, but he could not deliver anything. Quite frankly, he will not be able to deliver anything for the region while working with a federal Labor government. He has got form, he has not been able to deliver anything with the state Labor government and he certainly will not be able to deliver anything with the federal Labor government. It is an absolutely appalling state of affairs for this Prime Minister to have promised to fix hospitals and roads in our regional communities. He has completely failed, the state Labor government have failed with them and the regional communities across this country deserve better.