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

That was in July. It is now September and, months later, guess what? There is not one of those 30 beds that were announced in July in that hospital—not one. So with all of the fanfare—‘This is wonderful, this commitment to officially opening 30 new beds’—there is not one bed opened. Why? Because the state Labor government has failed to fund the staff they need to run the beds. It is just an extraordinary state of affairs. They have the funding; they have the announcement for the beds. Tweed Hospital thinks, ‘Fantastic, we’ve got 30 new beds.’ The hospital, might I say, is running enormously over its capacity anyway—30 new beds announced and absolutely none opened because Labor is in such disarray that they have not got any funding to fund the staff to operate the beds. The doctors up there are in open revolt. They have to turn away ambulances in non life-threatening cases. It is an appalling state of affairs. There are no future expansion plans for the Tweed Hospital, despite being in one of the most rapidly growing areas in the country. Neglect of the regions is what I said when I started this speech, and this is yet another example of that neglect of the regions. Labor do not care about the regions. They are not focused on the regions. They are not doing anything for the regions.

Also up in that particular area is the Murwillumbah hospital, which was built 70 years ago, thanks to fundraising by the then local Nationals MP, Larry Anthony Sr. It is now under constant assault by the Labor government. We have a state Labor government talking about taking away the maternity services at this regional hospital—a regional hospital that needs more theatre sisters and more funding. In that part of the world this is so serious that recently 6,000 local people attended a rally to support their local hospital because Labor was trying to rip it to shreds.

Where was the local member, Justine Elliot, on that day? Not to be seen. She did not even bother to turn up to support those people she purports to represent. What is even more interesting to know is how many times the federal member for Richmond, Justine Elliot, has talked about the Murwillumbah hospital in the other place. How many times has she mentioned it? I thought I had better go through, have a look and see how many times she had referred to it, because this is one of the most important issues to people in her electorate.