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Labor Snubs Gippsland In State BudgetGippsland has been snubbed in this year’s State Budget, Liberal Member for Gippsland Province Philip Davis said today. By Phillip Davis - 31st May 2006 - Back to News Mr Davis said Gippsland Southern Health Service had missed out on funding for the Leongatha Hospital redevelopment, which would be a huge blow to the local community.
"Gippsland Southern Health had everything in place for this redevelopment, and they were confident that the Labor Government had recognised the need and would support the project," Mr Davis said.
"But Leongatha was just one of a number of country hospitals to miss out on funding.
"There was also nothing in the budget in terms of compensation for the local community for the broken promise of bringing back passenger rail service to South Gippsland.
"Local bridge and road infrastructure in Gippsland and state-wide was again ignored.
"Safety issues in Narracan were again left unaddressed by the Labor Government, with no commitment to fund a third pedestrian crossing over the railway line in Warragul."
Mr Davis said he was seriously concerned that the Labor Government seemed to have given up on law and order issues affecting Gippsland.
"The Government has ignored concerns from locals that the Neerim South police station is in desperate need of further staffing to allow the station to operate 24-hours a day," he said.
"The staffing levels at Moe police station has also been placed in the too hard basket.
"The severe shortage of police officers at the Moe station, along with staff in the police prosecutions unit, has resulted in police across Gippsland being stretched to the limit.
"Police officers are constantly being ‘borrowed’ from other stations to alleviate vacancies and the Labor Government has no plan to tackle this issue – the Labor Member for Narracan Ian Maxfield has not even acknowledged there is a problem."
Mr Davis said the Labor Government had also discriminated against local senior citizens, by offering free Sunday public transport to all seniors in the Melbourne CBD, Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat, but not in Gippsland.
"This budget was a record spend for the Labor Government, plunging Victoria into more debt," he said.
"It is a pity Gippsland has not seen the benefit of this pre-election spending splurge."
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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