Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Three weeks ago in the Age, there was an article that referred to Caroline Springs, a suburb in the electorate of Gorton. The article indicated that Caroline Springs did not exist eight years ago, but now it is at the heart of the fastest-growing area in Australia’s most rapidly expanding city, Melbourne. The article said:

Caroline Springs, 800 hectares next to the Western Highway, is home to more than 12,000 people, mostly young families breaking into the property market.

Along with development in neighbouring Taylors Hill and Burnside—

it went on to say—

this planned community 22 kilometres west of the CBD has helped turn once-sleepy Melton Shire into the city’s growth hub.

This is in fact the case. It is one of the fastest-growing areas of Australia—the fastest growing area of Melbourne—and there is much need for services to be provided to the community in that area. In fact, as has been said in articles published in newspapers in Melbourne, Caroline Springs ‘has parks, a man-made lake’—in fact, two man-made lakes—‘and six schools’, and the town centre includes ‘a supermarket, police station, pharmacy, newsagent and several food shops’.

Unfortunately, Caroline Springs, or any other suburb in the electorate of Gorton, does not have a Medicare office. I have been taking complaints from constituents concerned that there is no Medicare office within my electorate. That is a problem that existed prior to the creation of Caroline Springs, and it is now compounded by what has been an exponential population growth in the region. The three offices that are probably closest to the constituents include Melton Central, Airport West and Highpoint. However, there is much need for constituents to visit a Medicare office.

In my view, the best place for a Medicare office would be Water Gardens Shopping Centre. It is a very large shopping complex right in the middle of Sydenham and Taylors Lakes, and very close to Taylors Hill and Hillside, and, indeed, to Caroline Springs. That would provide people wanting to obtain services from a Medicare office with the opportunity to do so. We will be petitioning the Commonwealth to make a decision to have an office in place as soon as possible. If Medicare office locations are based on merit, I think that decision will be made in our favour in due course.