Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

The local member was actually asked to get involved in this—that is Darren Cheeseman, the member for Corangamite—and failed to do so. As I say, this is not a party political issue, but I think there was significant disappointment in that regard.

The people of Colac need another pharmacy. The people of Colac deserve another pharmacy. The people of Colac even rate another pharmacy under the guidelines of the Pharmacy Guild itself. So let us cut the red tape and let us dispense with any bureaucratic excuses. Let us give Ruth Spokes, Jeanette Sell, Faye Roscoe and the 4,476 other signatories to the Colac petition the pharmacy their community so urgently deserves.

I note that I have still got a couple of minutes left, so I will not waste that opportunity. On a matter unrelated to the pharmacy issue, I will take the short time available to me to talk about the next federal member for Corangamite, Liberal candidate Sarah Henderson. Sarah is a local Geelong girl who made good as a journalist and business owner. Now she wants to take that knowledge and experience to Canberra, where she can use it on behalf of the people of Corangamite, and that will be quite a change for the better. The current Labor member, Darren Cheeseman, mistakenly thinks that his role is to serve as Canberra’s voice in Corangamite rather than as Corangamite’s voice in Canberra. He does not want to rock the boat. He is so fearful of his own Labor hierarchy that he always toes the party line, even if it is to the detriment of his own constituents. The people of Corangamite deserve to have a fighter for their interests in federal parliament who can complement the sort of willingness that people like Terry Mulder have to get into the trenches for them. When Sarah Henderson wins that seat in the next federal election, that is what Corangamite will get. As I said, I had a couple of minutes left and I thought I would add that to my comments about the Colac pharmacy.