Wednesday, 16 October 2024

 Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (19:27): (1198) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Health. I was actually going to invite my government colleagues to play along with a little game, but they have all gone home to bed, I think. But I want to ask: can you guess which one of these events came first? Donald Trump visits North Korea, Boris Johnson becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the release of the first Joker movie, the AFL hosts a grand final in Brisbane or Labor promises Pakenham a new hospital? For those of you playing at home, the answer is actually the last one. It has now been 2180 days since Labor promised Pakenham a new hospital. First at the 2018 election – and they said it would be completed by this year, and it absolutely has not – and then Labor promised the same hospital at the 2022 election, and now they say it will be complete by 2026, but we surely cannot trust them. My community is sick of waiting. The site of the long-promised hospital is an absolute disgrace – an empty lot with abandoned shops that the government forced out so they could build this new hospital. They have broken so many dreams, and they have failed to deliver on their promise. One constituent described the site as ‘derelict and Third World’, and sadly, I could not agree more. Minister, my community is sick of waiting, and the action that I seek is for you to answer the question my community is asking: when will we see action on this site?