Wednesday, 9 September 2026

 Richard WELCH (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:03): (2795) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and it concerns the failure of the Labor government to deliver the Eltham community hospital. At the 2018 election Labor promised 10 community hospitals. One of the community hospitals Labor proudly announced would be constructed in Eltham. The member for Eltham called it ‘a great outcome for our local community’, and her website told residents construction would start in 2022 and finish in 2024. Austin Health would run it, with urgent care, dialysis, day surgery, chemotherapy, public dental and mental health services all close to home. And then nothing – no sod turned, no contract let. In April 2024 the ABC reported that none of the 10 community hospitals were built, and the health minister’s explanation was that the government was:

… working with each of the communities … to understand the healthcare needs of those communities.

Subsequent to the promise, obviously. Six years later, after it promised them a hospital, it was still working out whether they needed one. In November 2025 the project vanished from the Health Building Authority website entirely, with no announcement and no letter to residents. A spokesperson said the government was ‘looking at how we best deliver the remaining community hospital builds’. This year’s budget gave it nothing. The program has now been revised upwards to $870 million, almost 30 per cent above the promise, and three of the 10 hospitals have opened – more money, fewer hospitals and the Eltham commitment quietly removed. It more or less sums up the Labor government’s commitment to transparency that the only notification was actually the deletion of it on the website.

Our Liberal candidate for Eltham, the hardworking Paul Byrnes, is running to ensure residents of Eltham have access to quality services close to home when they need them. Unlike Labor and the current member, who has never explained the broken promise, Paul is out on the ground speaking to his community, meeting with constituents and having sincere conversations. Paul will deliver for Eltham, unlike the tired Labor government and the absent local member. The action I seek from the minister is to come clean with the Eltham constituents and explain to them, in writing, before the end of the parliamentary term, why the government has broken another promise to not build the Eltham community hospital.