4 October, 2023
Health and transport dominate forum
An audience of 30 people turned up to the community forum hosted by Member for Groom Garth Hamilton.
Mr Hamilton was accompanied by South Australian colleague Tony Pasin, who has been Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport since June 2022.
The Function Centre forum was scheduled from 6.30 to 7.30pm but after a slight delay went through till 8.30pm.
A wide range of topics was raised including roads, Inland Rail, health, housing, cost of living, immigration and the problems of attracting and retaining skilled professionals in rural areas.
“One issue dominating everything now is the Voice but there’s so many other things that we need to be addressing,” Mr Hamilton said at the meeting’s start.
“I’m against the Voice on principle. I’ve always believed you shouldn’t be judged differently because of the colour of your skin or race,” he said.
He bemoaned the divisiveness of the referendum campaign.
“We’re not coming out of this clean. It’s terrible we’ve been torn apart,” he said.
Mr Hamilton also lamented the current two-tiered economy, with people who have money in the bank doing much better than those with mortgages.
Tony Pasin began by saying community meetings are an important element of democracy.
“The quality of civic debate has deteriorated and it’s on all of us to turn that around,” he said.
Mr Pasin then spoke at length on road policy in Australia, saying the federal government provides 80 per cent of funding for the nation’s 800,000km road network but with little control over the expenditure.
He said three quarters of the network is the responsibility of local government and most of the remainder rests with state governments.
The federal money comes mainly from fuel excise, 87 per cent of which is spent on roads.
“We need to make that 100 per cent,” he said.
“The national road network is deteriorating.
“Funding is flat-lining and maintenance costs are rising.”
Mr Pasin added the tendency to fund new projects has come at the expense of maintenance work.
From the floor, a local farmer said repair work on local roads was wasting money, because the bitumen seal wasn’t capable of withstanding 40 degree temperatures.
Mr Pasin agreed.
“We need to build once and build it right.” The Toowoomba bypass fiasco was mentioned,” he said.
Garth Hamilton said as a country we need to be thinking decades ahead, praising the Wellcamp Airport and Grand Central shopping complex.
“We need to be building 20 years ahead of time,” Mr Hamilton said.
Several people raised the lack of overtaking and turning lanes on the Gore Highway as a major road safety issue.
Mr Pasin urged them to make a Blind Spot application, which would force an official inspection.
“Don’t feel you are disempowered,” he said.
Inland Rail then dominated proceedings for 20 minutes or more.
Various residents argued it needed to be shifted north away from Pittsworth township and away from the Condamine floodplain, that the business case was flawed to favour the Wagner company, and the project’s continuing uncertainty was causing stress to local people.
Mr Hamilton agreed the uncertainty was hurting people but said he believed the route chosen is the best possible one and that Inland Rail will develop Toowoomba into a major distribution centre, like Chicago in the USA.
“I won’t give you false hope. I support the project but don’t support the way it’s been delivered,” he said.
Health was another concern raised from the floor, with claims the closure of Platinum Health’s clinic has created a potential health crisis for the Pittsworth community.
There are also increasing problems for residents trying to access appointments with Toowoomba specialists, as well as local GPs.
Mr Pasin said the problem was Australia-wide, exacerbated by the government’s decision to relax geographic demands on international doctors and the exodus of nurses away from hospitals to better conditions in NDIS jobs.
“There is no silver bullet,” he said.
Mr Hamilton said the solution included improving payment schedules for rural GPs and providing pathways for rural students to undertake medical studies without having to leave their homes in Pittsworth, Oakey or Toowoomba.
The meeting’s last focus was immigration with Mr Pasin saying the increased rate without skills criteria was only adding to the nation’s housing woes.
A final comment from the floor was something of a backhander, congratulating Mr Hamilton on hosting the public meeting but saying it was long overdue.
- Alastair Silcock
