Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

West Gippsland Hospital has been sewn into the fabric of our community since its first building was completed prior to the First World War. It's a critical asset to thousands of people, not just in Baw Baw Shire but beyond those borders as well. I've got to say the nursing, medical and administrative staff do an incredible job with stretched resources and a building that is no longer fit for purpose. Demographer Bernard Salt has highlighted that Drouin and Warragul are the fastest growing towns in Australia. That's why I put a new hospital for West Gippsland as the No. 1 priority in the Committee for Gippsland's first strategic plan back in 2011, and I've been fighting for a new West Gippsland hospital ever since.

I passionately believe that health care should never be a postcode lottery. But, under state and federal Labor governments, it is. The Allan Labor government is failing Victorians on health care, and, in my patch, that's the new West Gippsland hospital. They promised it would commence in 2023, and not even a draft plan has been put before my community. There is no detail on funding to deliver it. And yet we've seen $15 billion wasted as part of union corruption that has happened under the Victorian Labor government's watch. They can't turn a sod on a new hospital for West Gippsland, but they can shovel billions of taxpayers' money into a bottomless pit of waste and mismanagement.

What makes this situation even more frustrating for regional Victorians is the attitude coming from Canberra. In September last year, the Prime Minister wrote to state and territory leaders demanding they rein in hospital spending growth if they wanted the Commonwealth to honour a new five-year funding agreement. Let's think about that for a moment. At a time when hospitals are under immense pressure, when emergency departments are overflowing, when waiting lists are growing, when doctors and nurses are stretched to their limits, the Prime Minister's message to the states was essentially, 'Don't get sick.' To Gippslanders, 'Don't get sick.' To Victorians, 'Don't get sick.' Under this Labor government, 'Don't fund essential new infrastructure—the likes of the West Gippsland hospital,' was the message coming from the Prime Minister to the state premiers.

State health ministers were pretty incredulous about this demand. One even asked whether they were expected to close the front door to emergency departments to meet Canberra's demands. I think that's a fair point by that health minister. That is the reality of Labor governments at both levels—finger-pointing, buck-passing and bureaucratic arguments while hospitals like the West Gippsland Hospital struggle to keep up with demand from a growing regional community. Gippslanders deserve better, Victorians deserve better, and regional Australians deserve better than state and federal Labor governments.