Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want a better hospital for my constituents. That's why this is my 14th speech on this subject. Labor has governed Western Australia since 2017—almost a decade—and in that time they have promised $152 million to upgrade our hospital. And what have we seen? We've seen nothing—no new beds, no new wards. The Peel Health Campus is stretched to breaking point.

And it's not just Peel. WA's health system is collapsing. Ambulance ramping is at record highs. When Labor took office in March 2017, ramping across WA was 641 hours for the month. Last month it blew out to over 7,000 hours, a record high. Behind those numbers are real people: children, families and seniors. Let me paint the picture. Paramedics are stuck outside our hospitals, instead of giving urgent care to those who need it. People sit for hours in emergency; some are even sent away. Doctors and nurses are exhausted. This is a full-blown crisis. Clinicians warn the system is in a death spiral. And Premier Roger Cook's answer? A $50 million maintenance fund, which is 0.13 per cent of WA's infrastructure budget.

My community and all Western Australians deserve better. They deserve hospitals that work and a government that delivers. It's time Labor stopped making excuses. It's time Labor started fixing our hospitals, and I'll keep speaking in this chamber until it happens.