Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Department of Treasury and Finance

Budget papers 2022–23

Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (17:04): I rise to speak on the 2022–23 state budget and particularly in this case the part of the budget that raises the funding for health infrastructure. What I am going to speak about is something that was not in the budget this year, and that is a commitment to build a new hospital in Mildura. We know that the Labor government and Ali Cupper have been completely misleading the people of Mildura that they are committed to getting a new hospital up there. But here the government had the chance to put it in the budget, and they have totally failed the people of Mildura.

Of course the minister went up there last Friday, and he made all sorts of excuses about waiting for the completion of the master plan. Well, the master plan was supposed to be completed by the end of April, and of course we have not seen the master plan yet. We are now at the end of May, and no explanation has been given regarding its delay. But certainly the rumours coming out of the public service are that the master plan has been delayed for one reason, and that is for the government to buy more time for them to go back and review it. Instead of actually delivering one new hospital to Mildura, according to the rumours from the public service they are now exploring delivering the hospital across two campuses, with one of those campuses being just an upgrade of the facilities at the current base hospital.

The minister had a chance to see for himself last week how inadequate those facilities are, so I hope that has completely changed his mind. But I seriously doubt this government’s commitment to actually providing a first-class, world-class hospital in Mildura. In stark contrast to that, Matthew Guy came up to Mildura with me; Ms Crozier, the Shadow Minister for Health; and our candidate in Mildura, Paul Matheson. Matthew Guy announced $750 million—that is three-quarters of a billion dollars—to build a brand new hospital in Mildura, including an academic health precinct so that we can train health professionals in Mildura so that they stay there and we have a dedicated supply of health professionals coming on board. We all know that this is why the rural medical clinics have started up. People who train in the country are far more likely to stay there. They become embedded in those communities where they have studied and enjoyed the hospital that they have been attached to, and they do stay in the regions. So that is a real bonus that comes along with a new hospital in Mildura for the people of Mildura under a Matthew Guy Liberal government.

I think there is a very stark contrast right now in Mildura. They can vote for Ali Cupper and get a Labor government and get more of the same—get ignored, have their hospital just kicked along the road a bit, have the can kicked along the road a bit more—‘Let’s delay the master planning a little bit longer’. The service planning is now finished, but it was delayed. The government never intended to make any commitment, whereas in stark contrast to that the Liberal Party have made a commitment to a world-class hospital and an educational precinct in Mildura.

Mr Gepp interjected.

Ms LOVELL: I will take up Mr Gepp’s interjection. He says, ‘Oh, you’re the government that privatised it’. That was nearly 30 years ago. All this government can rely on is going back to the 1990s and pointing to decisions of 30 years ago. For 19 of the last 23 years Labor have been in power in this state, and Daniel Andrews has been the health minister or Premier for 15 of those years. Yet Labor have made no commitment to Mildura. They did not even buy the infrastructure back. It was a Liberal government that bought the infrastructure back and placed it back in public hands. So Labor can only point to something that happened 30 years ago. They are not prepared to give a commitment to the people of Mildura now, and they should apologise to Mildura.