Tuesday, 2 August 2022

 Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (14:52): (1886) My constituency question is for the Minister for Health. The Wodonga-Albury community continue to wait for news of their new hospital. Instead of simply letting us know what is going on, we continue to be told to wait patiently like good children and that one day will find out. We do not want to wait. We want to know the truth about what, how, when and where a new hospital will be built. The people of Wodonga are not mushrooms to be kept in the dark and fed only bovine excrement. Recently the new head of Albury Wodonga Health said that people would never be allowed to see the apparently still incomplete master plan because it was commercial-in-confidence. Minister, how can it be possible that the plan for a new hospital, prepared by the department, paid for by Victorian taxpayers and existing for the benefit of Victorian residents is commercial in confidence? The people of Wodonga need to see the plan, and they need to see it now. This pathological secrecy needs to stop. Stop hiding behind commercial in confidence. If you continue to keep it secret, we can only assume the news is bad.