Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the declining quality of life in rural communities with the diminishing availability of infrastructure and everyday services to ordinary Australians. My electorate of Dickson encompasses many rural communities, including those in the old Esk and Pine River shires, who are already beginning to feel the effects of this government’s broken promises. The lack of proper health services in the Esk region in particular is critical, and Mr Rudd is not proving to have the control over his state counterparts he promised he would at the time of the last election.

Tonight I draw the attention of the House to the announcement of the closure of the hospital in the western Queensland town of Aramac in the federal seat of Flynn. There had been no consultation with the community before 22 staff members were told on Tuesday that they would no longer be employed. The Queensland Labor Minister for Health, Stephen Robertson, proposes to replace the hospital with a smaller primary healthcare centre. Patients may travel from properties several hours outside Aramac to find that the paramedic is not available because they are kilometres away attending an emergency somewhere else in the shire. They will then have to travel another hour to seek medical assistance. What Mr Robertson fails to mention when he states that only 12 overnight admissions have been made over the past 12 months is that five permanent elderly patients who are cared for at Aramac Hospital will be left high and dry. One elderly patient who has spent her whole life in Aramac and has no remaining family relies on this caring community, who have become her family and network. If this lady is removed to Barcaldine or Longreach for aged care she will have no visitors. At the moment she has visitors every day. There is no public transport to Barcaldine and the drive is considerable. Patients, outpatients and visitors who live several hours outside their town centre of Aramac should not have to drive any further to this service. The federal government promised during the election to fix our hospitals and here they are standing aside while their state Labor government colleagues are closing them. What the Labor Party constantly fail to recognise is the domino effect of their off-the-cuff decisions. Everyone in this community will be affected by this decision.

When you have only 65 children in your school and you remove 22 families, the impact of this is obvious. Kevin Rudd is worrying about truancy while this community is facing the closure of its school. If you are the local baker, butcher or convenience store owner and 22 families move out of your community, the impact on your small business is of course detrimental. You have now 22 families who are unemployed and who, as a result, will need to relocate. With the current housing crisis that this government promised to fix, you now have 22 families joining the queue to get housing and financial support. The Queensland government logo appears on a publication by the Remote Area Planning and Development board encouraging people to move to outback Queensland, saying it ‘offers a healthy environment and all the services and infrastructure you expect to make your life comfortable’. On the flipside of this glossy brochure, Aramac sits at the top of a table of towns recommended as a place to relocate to. Listed are the services available, such as education, child care, financial services, employment and investment and, lastly, health services. Again I quote: ‘The region is serviced by full-time doctors, as well as visiting specialists and a range of health professionals.’ While the Labor government spends $2.6 million on a monument to the tree of knowledge in the neighbouring town of Barcaldine and the Bligh government offers a $1 million reward a year to the town that can come up with the best idea to battle obesity, the town of Aramac has no doctor and now no hospital.

The coalition strongly opposed the amalgamation of Queensland councils, and this is a blatant example of why. The larger shire of Aramac and the shire of Jericho were amalgamated with Barcaldine. Services are gradually being relocated to Barcaldine, stripping Aramac of its livelihood and existence. The coalition will always support rural communities, who are the lifeblood of this country. If we expect families to continue to live and work in these areas and support our agricultural industry, we must provide them with the services they are entitled to. We have seen firsthand the attitude this government has to rural communities with the slashing of funding to regional development, and the coalition will continue to challenge it on this.

Tonight I also pay tribute to two former residents of the Aramac community, Peter and Sandy Landers, who are obviously very devastated by the closure of this hospital. They hold the community of Aramac near and dear to their hearts. They are now well entrenched in the Dickson electorate, to the betterment of our local community, and are sadly missed, I am sure, by the people of Aramac. But they share the pain of the people of Aramac and towns similar to it where this Labor government is closing the hospitals. (Time expired)