Craigieburn community hospital
Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (18:34): (1670) My adjournment is for the Minister for Health. It has been seven long years and two elections since Labor promised a new community hospital in Craigieburn, a hospital that was completed last year but today remains behind a padlocked fence with no staff and no beds. I mean, you have heard about the pub with no beer, but here we have a hospital that no-one can use. Last week’s budget confirmed that this commitment to open the new Craigieburn community hospital has been pushed back to late 2026. Many residents have contacted me angry about this, and to be honest, I am angry about this. Hume City Council even passed a motion asking the government what on earth is going on with the Craigieburn community hospital. No-one seems to know, and the government keeps giving me, the community and the council non-responses. You have got a brand new community hospital sitting there behind literally a barbed wire fence that is padlocked that no-one can access. We need proper healthcare services in the north. Our allied health services are being flogged with payroll tax under this government. We need a proper community hospital – we need an actual fully blown community hospital in an area like Craigieburn – but there is a community hospital that is there, built, that no-one can use. Residents are angry. I am angry. The community are really angry about this because we have got a brand new hospital there that no-one can use.
The people of Craigieburn and the people of the north – Mickleham, Greenvale and surrounds – deserve better than this Labor government. It is quite clear when you rack up $194 billion of debt and are paying $25 million a day in interest – over $1 million an hour just to service the interest on the debt – and debt repayment becomes one of the largest growth items of expenditure in the budget that somebody has to pay for that, and unfortunately the people that are paying for that mismanagement under this government are the people of Craigieburn and the people of the northern suburbs, who lose out on access to decent health care because this government cannot manage money. The action I seek is for the Minister for Health to explain herself and why the funding for this hospital to open is not there and why they have pushed this opening back.