ON Saturday, in his first public statement, the new Liberal Party candidate for Mildura claimed the landmark hospital wins of this parliamentary term would have happened anyway – with or without my work, and presumably without the work of the community.
If you counted the number of people who contributed to the Mildura Base Public Hospital campaign, from signing petitions to getting elected to Parliament, they would number in the thousands.
When you deny those wins to me, you deny them to every single community member who fought for our hospital to be returned.
That’s a lot of people to alienate with the Liberal candidate’s false version of history, tempting as it might be for a party that has such an appalling record in the state seat of Mildura.
After all, it was the Liberal Party that took away our train.
It was the Liberal Party that took away our hospital – twice.
It was the Liberal Party who described our region as the toenails of the state.
You can try to erase history or sweep it under the carpet, but the memories of the Liberal Party’s last forays in Mildura are indelible.
We remember how David Davis treated our community as Health Minister.
We remember his outright dismissal of the expert testimony of doctors like Kevin Chambers, Vasa Skorupanovic and Barry Dowty.
We remember him refusing to meet with Ilona Legin before she died.
We remember that after being presented with a petition with more than 3000 signatures for the return of the hospital, he refused to give it to the Legislative Assembly for tabling, and refused to give it back.
If the Liberal Party wants redemption, it should own its mistakes and do better, not try to rewrite history. It is dishonourable and lazy. Two traits that Mallee people despise.
What they want is hard work and results.
That’s what I will continue to focus on, because I know from years of experience that wins like ours don’t just walk through the door.
