Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to the previous speaker, it's really regrettable that we continue to see so many lies being told by the Labor Party in relation to education. It's also happening in my electorate.

It was with great joy just in the last week that I was able to announce on behalf of the Morrison Liberal government that Epworth Geelong hospital, an incredible investment in our region, has received a new Medicare MRI licence. This is an incredible win for our community for an amazing hospital, and it's the culmination of a very strong community campaign where I worked very closely with the hospital. I'm absolutely delighted and want to thank Greg Hunt, the Minister for Health and member for Flinders, a mighty local member, for the incredible work that he is doing standing up for people right across this country when it comes to delivering record health investment to this country. I want to congratulate everyone at Epworth, and I'm so proud that we have secured this licence, which will make the difference in relation to about 6,000 services, meaning that most MRIs at Epworth will now be bulk-billed—free of charge. The minimum charge applicable before was $275, so this is going to be so important in terms of the life-changing technology that MRI scans provide to our community.

It continues a long list of achievements in the Corangamite electorate, and I'm so proud to stand up and fight for the people I represent. I am so proud to be their strong local voice on really important investments that we have delivered—that only the Liberal coalition government has delivered. The upgrade of the Great Ocean Road was an investment that the previous federal Labor government did not support. In fact, they campaigned against it, an absolute disgrace. The Princes Highway duplication was a $183 million investment for the duplication between Colac and Winchelsea. The new international terminal at Avalon Airport is, again, a project that Labor stopped when they were in government but that we are now proudly funding to the tune of $20 million, and that is transformational. Of course, there's more than a quarter of a billion dollars for local rail—and Daniel Andrews needs to get on with his fast rail plan; he's not doing anything, and that's an absolute disgrace. There's $154 million for the Geelong City Deal; money for our local surf clubs and for wonderful organisations like Cottage by the Sea; the regional jobs and investment package of $20 million, driving hundreds and thousands of new jobs in our electorate; and the NBN, with 19 mobile base stations. Standing up for so many communities, like Wye River after the catastrophic bushfires, I'm very proud to be delivering for Corangamite.