SUBJECT: Federal election.
RICHARD KING, PRESENTER: Good morning, Pat.
PAT CONROY, MEMBER FOR SHORTLAND: Morning Richard, how are you?
KING: Good thanks. Well, yeah six weeks away now. At last, we have the date. And as I said, basically two questions Pat. You’re Labor, you’re a Federal MP. Why in your opinion do you think on the 21st of next month should Australia vote for Labor?
CONROY: Well for a couple of reasons. First, we will be building a better future. We’ve got a plan for cheaper childcare, cheaper power bills, and more secure, well-paid jobs. And as importantly as those specific policies, we’ll have a new Prime Minister in Anthony Albanese who won’t go missing when he’s needed. He won’t go missing when there’s bushfires or floods. He won’t be late to the vaccine rollout, and importantly he won’t blame others for his own mistakes. So nationally, I think that’s why people should be voting Labor, and we’ve got some great local policies that will improve the lives of people in Shortland.
KING: Well just on that, okay, so why should voters in the electorate of Shortland vote for you, Pat? And what have you done for Shortland in this term of office, and what have you got planned?
CONROY: So people should vote for Labor in Shortland because we’ll solve the GP crisis that’s happening right now. People can’t get in to see a doctor. We’ll restore the funding to the GP Access After Hours clinics that helps 70,000 Hunter families each and every year. We’ll fund a Lake Macquarie Economic Development Package that will grow over 12,000 jobs. So they’re just some of the policies we’ve announced.
And what have I achieved over the last three years? Well I’ve helped coordinate and lead a community campaign to stop PEP-11. There was huge community outcry that put huge pressure on the Prime Minister to do the right thing and stop oil and gas drilling five kilometres off our coast.
That’s one example of leading a big campaign, but we’ve also done good work helping individuals. So for example, Ian Waller who is a constituent of mine at Belmont, he is vision impaired and the NDIS stopped funding his guide dog which is just offensive. So we’ve been fighting to get that funding restored, and in the meantime, we’ve been drawing attention to Ian’s plight in the community and backed him in to help fund, to maintain that guide dog. And we do things like that each and every week. We got someone’s daughter home who lives in Budgewoi to see her sadly dying grandfather and she’d hit all sorts of bureaucratic hurdles getting home from China.
So they’re the concrete examples of what I’ve done to fight for our community, but obviously if we get a Labor Government nationally we can do much more like restore funding for GP Access After Hours service, drive more jobs in our region, help solve the mobile phone black spots that have cropped up all over the place like in Mount Hutton.
KING: Alright, good. Alright, thank you very much for that Pat, and best of luck on the 21st.
CONROY: Thanks Richard, have a great morning.