Topics: Labor’s lies on funding for Gold Coast hospitals and Light Rail.
E&OE:
Karen Andrews: Labor needs to put up or shut up with its disgraceful lies and scare mongering about funding for Robina Hospital. This isn’t the Wild West and Labor doesn’t get to say and do anything that it wants. Under Labor funding for Gold Coast hospitals was less than $200 million. Under the Coalition and on my watch, funding for Gold Coast hospitals is over $400 million. So under Labor less than $200 million, under the Coalition over $400 million – does that look like a funding cut to you?
Question: How much would that cost taxpayers? How much more will they be taxed I guess?
Karen Andrews: This is the Government’s record. This is the Coalition Government’s record on health – this is what we have already achieved. We have increased the funding to our $400 million for hospitals here on the Gold Coast, that’s already done. That isn’t the future, that is the reality – that is what’s happening now.
Question: So how are you feeling when you see these kinds of things saying you’re cutting so much to Robina Hospital?
Karen Andrews: Labor is lying about funding to Gold Coast hospitals. Labor is lying about funding cuts to Robina Hospital. Gold Coasters deserve a lot better than candidates who are inexperienced, jumping up and repeating the Labor lies.
Question: What do you think about these claims Ros?
Ros Bates: The public is sick of Labor’s lies. The candidate for McPherson is a former failed candidate who cut and run from Mudgeeraba. On top of that he lied about his job application for a position with a Liberal senator, failed to tell people that he was a card carrying member of the Labor party. So this is a candidate who’s already a fraud, a phony and a fake. We know here at Robina Hospital that ramping has increased by 30 per cent under the Palaszczuk Labor Government. We know that patients are not being seen in clinically recommended timeframes and also the median wait time for surgery here at Robina Hospital has blown out a whopping 55 per cent under Annastacia Palaszczuk and Labor. Under Annastacia Palaszczuk and Labor what we’ve seen is a crisis in our hospitals, we are seeing hospitals at code yellows, we’re seeing paramedics and nurses being abused and assaulted, we’ve seen all of the wait times blowing out. Under the Labor party, under Anna Bligh, she called Queensland Health a ‘basket case’. Under Annastacia Palaszczuk and her useless Minister for Health Doctor Dolittle Steven Miles what we’re now seeing is bedlam.
Question: The cost to extend the light rail to Burleigh has jumped by $45 million. Do you think the State Government should chip in?
Ros Bates: The State Government need to put their money where their mouth is. All we’ve heard since 2015 is Annastacia Palaszczuk and Mark Bailey blaming everybody else for the gridlock that we’ve got here on the Gold Coast.
*Bus drives past*
Mark Bailey, who the Triple C themselves has called a ‘foolish minister’ – I mean you can’t trust a word that that bloke says – I mean he held up funding for the M1 for the last four and a half years, arguing about funding splits. The State Government, the fact is they haven’t put one red cent into the next extension of the Light Rail and not only do we have road fail, we have rail fail and now we have light rail fail under the Labor Government.
Question: There’s been a suggestion that developers should also pay for upgrades to the Gold Coast Highway seeing as they’re building along that stretch of road – do you think that’s a good idea?
Ros Bates: Certainly I think there is issues about the route, there’s different ideas about things but there will be resumptions and it will be an expensive process. We need to make sure that we get the process right and that the most number of people on the Gold Coast can actually access it.
Question: What should be a priority? Gold Coast Highway or M1 upgrades?
Ros Bates: The M1 upgrade is the biggest issue and the LNP Opposition have already announced that we will fund the second M1 from Nerang-Broadbeach Road up to Stapylton, that something which needs to be done now. We know that it will take 80,000 cars off the M1, the Northern end of the M1 every day and what that means for commuters on the Southern Gold Coast is that they’re not going to be fighting with another 60-80,000 cars on the Northern end so that they can get home earlier.
Karen Andrews: Federally, the Coalition Government has committed $112 million to extend the Light Rail from Broadbeach through to Burleigh Heads. State Labor has done nothing – diddly squat – haven’t even said how much money they’re going to contribute to the Light Rail. I seriously doubt their commitment to Gold Coast infrastructure. It’s been the Federal Government that’s had to lead on funding for the M1, that is a critical piece of transport infrastructure and under my watch that money came through to upgrade all the way through to the border. Now it’s about time that Labor stop whinging, complaining and actually did something to make sure that they put their money into transport infrastructure here on the Gold Coast.
[ENDS]