Thursday, 5 February 2026

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:04): (2292) Minister, Minister, Minister. Minister for Health, this was going so well. We were starting to get to know each other, and I am afraid we have hit a roadblock. That roadblock came in the form, this week, of an annual report. Eastern Health delivered their annual report, and I devoured it. I confess to you, Minister, I devoured it like a cheeseburger or a hamburger on a day where I have been doorknocking and I have not had much food. As I devoured it, I was not satisfied. True to say, perhaps this was because there were not two all-beef patties and special sauce, nor lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion and certainly not on a sesame seed bun. Nowhere in that report did it mention the words ‘Queen Elizabeth II hospital’. To be fair and honest, that pleased me because it is a ridiculous name for the Maroondah Hospital, and for some time I have been advocating that it ought not be the name for that hospital, right along with all my locals and just about every citizen on planet Earth. Small little planet – beautiful – but they do not like the name Queen Elizabeth II for our Maroondah Hospital. It was ill conceived, ill timed and highly inconsiderate, if not downright rude, to Indigenous Australians. But I digress.

I did not find the name of the hospital in the annual report of Eastern Health. I found no mention – not one. Not a single mention did I find of the redevelopment – the much-promised rebuild – of Maroondah Hospital. Perhaps this is some sort of cruel hoax, or an error, so I wait with bated breath. I will not hold my breath literally, because it is another week and I might well need medical attention were that to be the case. However, in the absence of there being a reissued annual report for Eastern Health, what concerns me greatly is that in 2018 the people of my district, the people of my suburbs – from Mitcham, Nunawading, Heatherdale, Heathmont, Ringwood, Ringwood East and Blackburn – were promised an emergency department for children. I quote from the press release of the government at the time:

An emergency department Maroondah kids and their families can count on.

That did demonstrate you had a sense of humour, and your government, because you never delivered it – a cruel sense of humour; I will give you that. That was in 2018. It never happened. There was no delivery at all on that promise. In 2022 – fast-forward four years – we were promised a new hospital. It surprised me. As I said at the outset of this little tete-a-tete we are having now, it surprised me very much that you have still not delivered. There is not a singular reference or mention of Queen Elizabeth hospital. I am sorry this upsets you too, Mrs McArthur, but nonetheless there is not a single reference to that hospital and not a single acknowledgement or indication that there is a single cent for that hospital. In some months we are headed to the next election. I can only hope that in this budget coming there is a cent more for our hospital.