ALI Cupper says she will stand on her record of achieving better health care in Mildura, as the Nationals seek to link her to the state’s health crisis ahead of the November election.
Health and the independent Member for Mildura’s achievements in that field are the subject of a Nationals-commissioned SMS survey, which asked “do you think Mildura health services are worse or better since local MP Ali Cupper was elected in 2018?”
The party says 74 per cent of the sample, of just 300 people, said health services were worse, which Nationals candidate Jade Benham said “points to the sentiment … that the Andrews government, along with the current independent representation, have missed the mark on our health care delivery in Mildura”.
But Ms Cupper has hit back with an itemised statistical record of her health funding wins for Mildura, which show that the area has been granted more than $102 million by the state since she was elected.
She compared that to the health funding record of her Nationals predecessor in the seat, Peter Crisp, and produced another itemised list that showed Mildura had been granted just $12.35 million while Mr Crisp was sitting in opposition between 2014 and 2018, and $11.55 million while he was in government between 2010 and 2014.
The survey follows revelations that a Nationals campaign message criticising Ms Cupper and planned for a Mildura billboard had been rejected by an advertising company because it was an attack ad.
The rejected billboard message sought to link the independent Mildura MP to the Labor Government of Dan Andrews, which is unpopular in Mildura, and Ms Benham continued this strategy as she spoke of the survey.
“Ms Cupper has consistently given undue credit to an Andrews Labor government that has ignored regional Victoria and left health care in Mildura in a shamble state, resulting in untenable waitlists and poor service delivery,” she said.
Ms Cupper said she would not “get in the gutter” to return fire at the Nationals, but would stand on her record.
“I have worked incredibly hard for health care in the Mallee and I was a health care activist before I was a state MP,” she said.
She had used “most of my political capital” to get the government to return Mildura Base Hospital to public management after it was privatised by a former Liberal government.
“I’m sure that if the Nationals had been reelected in 2018, we wouldn’t have got our hospital back (in public hands) because at no stage did our Nationals MP ask for it to be brought back,” she said.
Ms Cupper said she would campaign for the election “on my record of hard work and results” and that the Coalition would “run their campaign on smear and slander”.
“Politics is a fight, it is a contest of ideas and it should be, and it should be robust contest of ideas, but it should be a fair fight,” she said.
“A scrappy, dirty fight doesn’t enhance democracy. I think it undermines it.”
