Thursday, 19 December 2024
Subjects: Petition, Wallendbeen Bridge, Emergency Services
Dave Eisenhauer: Member for Cootamundra Steph Cook joins us on the line. Steph a very good morning to you.
Steph Cooke: Good morning to you Dave and to your listeners this morning.
Dave Eisenhauer: On a beautiful day Steph, where are you talking to us from today?
Steph Cooke: I'm coming to you from Young as a starting
point and then, of course, as per usual, I'll make my way across the electorate.
This time I'm heading south towards Cootamundra today, where they've got the sparkling streets, Christmas party, the evening, and for the first time in a long time, Dave, to get straight into business,
I actually have a little stand of my own at these markets and it is not unfortunately selling my beautiful flowers from my past life as a florist.
I'm actually encouraging people to come along and sign a petition which is aimed at saving the pathology lab in Cootamundra that's based at the hospital which is under threat of closure at the moment and also to help us fight for intensive care paramedics, where in our stations across the Cootamundra electorate,
we have a situation where the drugs and equipment that they use to practice to
their full scope, which is beyond that of a regular paramedic on our teams,
is being removed from the stations, from the vehicles.
So that means if we've got an intensive care paramedic on our teams and there are a number across the Cootamundra electorate, they actually cannot practice us to their full scope and that is really, really concerning.
And so, this petition has got two aspects. The first one is around the pathology lab at the Coota Hospital and the second one is around that all -important equipment of drugs that our intensive care paramedics need, particularly in this day and age when, you know, every day of the week we've got multiple ambulances on the road transporting people from homes and other places into those major hospitals like Wagga.
We really need that equipment and those drugs restored and so we're encouraging people right across our electorate for one reason or another when it comes to rural health. I think that we're really up against it at the moment Dave, and on that basis I really did feel it was time that the community came together, was very united in sending a strong message back to Macquarie Street about what is happening in our local communities on the health front
and asking for the Parliament's intervention.
So, this is a petition that is directed at the New South Wales Parliament itself. We need 10,000 signatures. The Parliament does not allow for a combination of online and handwritten petitions. That's an interesting rule that they have. It has to be one or the other.
I've elected to do it as paper-based because it's an important opportunity for people to
come forward, put their name to us, and also in the process if they have had an experience with health that hasn't met their expectations or there's something they feel I need to know as a local member they'll be able to step forward and have that chat with me and I'm more than open to that so that's what I'll be up to today.
Dave Eisenhauer: Well and health is such an important issue in our communities Steph
whether they be the metropolitan areas but especially in our regional areas isn't
that the truth?
Steph Cooke: Absolutely Dave, it's critical, it's absolutely critical and we do believe that it is heading in the wrong direction at the moment and has been for a little while now.
And on Saturday when we launched this petition, I spoke to Mayor Abb McAllister and Deputy Mayor Ross Wight and the Health Services Union and between us we agreed that for a Saturday morning, 14th of December, you know, that very short time before Christmas, we would have been happy if we had have got 20 or 30 signatures that would have meant that we were on our way and over the coming months we would be able to set about getting
the rest.
Well, we had over 500 people turn up at a rally on Saturday, it absolutely blew me away.
Abb McAllister spoke passionately as he always does. He was tremendous and in an upcoming chat with him, Dave, I would strongly recommend that you have a yarn with him about not just the issue, but he was able to talk about his mum's long history in the health sector about what it used to be like at Gundagai Hospital before the services stopped there.
They do have a great hospital, it's an MPS. It does the job just nicely, but we're in a situation in places like Cootamundra where we either step up and see those services strengthened like theatre, maternity, pathology, or we see a complete stripping back and a shell of what it used to be.
Dave Eisenhauer: We cannot have that.
Steph Cooke: We cannot have that, Dave. It is unacceptable. It is entirely unacceptable, and look, I continue to work as closely and constructively as I can with the New South Wales Government.
And in fact, on these two issues, I've had several meetings with the Minister's office, with the
relevant departments, with the local health district, over and over again. I've worked really constructively throughout 2023 and all of 2024 to try and get this issue resolved in a way that will benefit our communities. And I have been unable through those channels and those processes to do that.
So, it's very unfortunate from my perspective to be having to organise rallies, organise petitions, not because I'm not up for the challenge and the hard work, not at all, but to think that we have been up to now unable to negotiate and navigate through a constructive pathway.
We feel as though we've been really forced into this position. The community feels as though it's been forced into this position and that's obvious by the fact that we were expecting just a handful of people to turn up. We ended up having 500 and by the Monday media from right across the electorate was saying, "Wow, Steph, what on earth is going on in health that has made people so frustrated that just days before Christmas they're prepared to drop their plans, drop their Christmas shopping and come and support you for a few hours around this really important cause."
And so hopefully through 2025 we will keep that momentum up. I personally will be in
every single locality in the Cootamundra electorate talking to people, getting their signatures, making sure they understand what we're fighting for and why, and hopefully over the next four to six months we will get those 10,000 signatures that we need.
Dave Eisenhauer: I can't believe the numbers that turned up, they're 500 plus, wow, what an amazing community effort.
Steph Cooke: Oh look, it was incredible and just as a sort of an aside, there was a cricket match occurring during junior cricket across from Jubilee Park when we were sort of having our rally and a couple of days later there was a team from Ariah Park of all places, playing in Cootamundra, and I happened to be in Ariah Park for their school presentation night and a couple of people came up to me and said wow what on earth have you had you organized across the road because it was sort of drowning out their cricket match, and I was entirely unexpected,
but it just goes to show how worried, how deeply worried people are about what is happening in this space and the other great thing that happened Dave and I'll just use this opportunity to say to people that you can help me with this process and what we saw on Saturday was around about 30 or 40 people come up to me afterwards that they type their details directly into my phone and said to me, Steph, we will help you in any way we can, get out to those smaller villages, set up a little card table, take signatures. We will help you as best we can. I'm very appreciative that people are prepared to do that. If anybody else that's listening to you this morning would like to get involved, it doesn't need to be restricted to the Cootamundra electorate.
You might have people in Tumut that are also worried or Tumbarumba or Batlow out or
out alone. Yep. That might be worried about what's happening in the health space in their community that might want to jump on board and have their voices heard through this process as well.
And I'm more than happy to open the doors so that we can get a real spotlight on what's happening out here in rural health.
Dave Eisenhauer: Let's talk the bridge and I know this made through the week as well, the Wallendbeen Bridge.
Steph Cooke: Oh gosh, when things happen they tend to happen in waves.
Dave Eisenhauer: Don't they, what?
Steph Cooke: Oh goodness, well this is an ongoing frustration for first and foremost, for the community of Wallendbeen and they are the people that we really need to feel the most for at this point in time.
This is a bridge that collapsed four years ago, an original, an old bridge over a hundred years old, and at the time, noting that it's on the Burly-Griffin Way, one of two east -west routes, only two in the south part of the state, the then -Minister Toole moved very, very swiftly to put in a temporary bridge. We knew that we had to get that main route reopened for traffic. It goes all the way, you know, Griffith and out to Adelaide and beyond.
Then things just ground to a halt quite literally Dave, and here we are four years on that temporary bridge is still there that was never ever meant to be the case and over the weekend on Sunday morning there was an incident on the bridge involving a heavy vehicle and the driver thankfully was uninjured in that incident, but the temporary bridge has been damaged and there's been already a few assessments undertaken by engineers that, whether they be from ARTC or UGL from a railroad perspective or Transport for New South Wales for the bridge itself and the approaches, it's very, very complex and convoluted.
There are a number of different agencies and people involved, but the bottom line is, we are trying to work our way through a fourth harvest. It is a delayed harvest because of that rain event that we spoke about the last time. These farmers are working around the clock to close out their harvest and they are trying to deal with the constraints of that bridge
again.
It is closed indefinitely. I can advise any of your listeners today. It is closed indefinitely. Transport for New South Wales are, they're looking at the future along two lines. What if anything can be done to repair the temporary bridge and get it open? What do detours look like and how long can those detours be safely sustained? Noting the damage that it does to the local road network while ever they're in place? And secondly, how quickly can a new bridge, the bridge we need and deserve four years on, how quickly can that project be
closed out?
Now today I don't have answers on either of those fronts but Transport for New South Wales have undertaken to come back to me every time they've got new information. So far they've been very, very good with that and I have no and to believe that they won't be in the future.
However, I continue to make it clear to the New South Wales Government, the Minister's Office and the Department, we need this new bridge now and four years on it is entirely unacceptable that the community of Wallendbeen, our farmers, our heavy vehicle operators and people who travel throughout the region, some of which have never been to our part of the world have to endure the circumstances of that temporary bridge and now where we're at.
Dave Eisenhauer: And of course, the good news out of there Steph is the driver was uninjured but that's not going to be a repeat unfortunately it's it. We tend to throw a spotlight onto our regional roads quite often yesterday we were talking about the Brindabella Road here in the Snowy Valleys and of course the ACT the border there. Our regional roads are always important, but Steph, that particular area there with the big trucks Of course the trucks are bigger and heavier
Steph Cooke: Yeah, absolutely Dave, and we're trying to move harvest around, you know bins the whole lot. I mean, it is just unacceptable particularly at this time of the year and it's all coming at you know at the end of the school year very close to Christmas, a delayed harvest, really and truly you couldn't have had a worse set of circumstances all come together to create what we have. But on the other hand Dave, it's not unexpected either because myself and the community, we've had several meetings with Transport for New South Wales.
The Minister herself has come to the site and at the time I applauded it, I was extremely grateful because the Minister was able to come and stand there and see the heavy vehicles moving to and from. And some of them going more quickly than they should be, cars going more quickly than they should be. It is a dangerous precinct. We've been calling it out for years and nothing short of a new bridge is going to solve it.
Dave Eisenhauer: And at the end of the day, Steph look, it's just a bridge. It should be an no brainer. It should be something that says look we're talking about people's safety. It's they're not hard to build, they're precast these days. They're it's we're not talking rocket science here Steph. You've been doing an almighty job but as you said it's been four years. It's sometimes it makes you wonder.
Steph Cooke: And the other thing Dave just as we as we close out this segment is that it's how many pause and think about the road's investment on the regional road across our electorate and indeed across New South Wales.
We have seen billions and billions of dollars spent on the Newell Highway, the Prince's Highway, the Pacific Highway, and I don't think we've seen enough money spent on those key corridors, and the Burleigh Griffin way is absolutely one of those.
So I've spoken on your program before about the William Bradford Bridge which is about 10 k's east of this Wallendbeen Bridge and I haven't spoken to you but there's another spot just further up the hill, if you're coming from Hardin and you're looking to turn right to go to Young and you end up going through Wombat, there's that crest and there's a right hand turn, it's an intersection that's incredibly dangerous.
I've highlighted that with Ministers over the years. I'm on the record with respect to that, so we have this section of 20 kilometres between Harden and Wallendbeen at the very least, where there are our three very, very dangerous points just in that section.
And it's had me really think that in 2025 I'm going to step up my advocacy around the Burley Griffin way in general, and I know that there will be other regional roads, the Olympic highway, another one that needs further investment. But these are critical routes across our landscape through multiple local government areas. And I think we need a holistic approach to how these roadworks occur and the upgrades that happen and the timing of them.
Dave Eisenhauer: very important the timing of them Steph and we talk about a lot with the snowy mountains highway in the winter months and the work with the extra heavy vehicles working on that because we have a lot of tourists that may not be aware of the crest on the
right hand side as you go to the top of the hill next to Patterson's and that local knowledge doesn't exist in our tourism traffic and that's when we start to see accidents occur and something the police are trying so hard to work to prevent but when the roads aren't up to the scratch and you've got those things, Steph, that you're working on.
Well-done, we're going to be talking more about that in 2025, supporting of course the wonderful work done by emergency services in amongst all this as well, Steph. They're always standing by just in case, aren't they?
Steph Cooke: Look, absolutely. And I'd love to use this opportunity to thank our emergency services once again for what has been a very big year in terms of responding to all manner of incidents right across the Cootamundra electorate and there are many of them that will be on standby and at work over the Christmas break. When the rest of us are having time with our families on Christmas Day, there will be emergency services volunteers and paid staff that will be stepping up to assist our communities.
Last year on Christmas day we had the big hailstorm in Grenfell and I spent the afternoon and the evening over there in that community looking at the damage to a number of buildings and people's homes and spending time with the SES as they were responding under those circumstances and Dave that can happen on any day including Christmas day.
Dave Eisenhauer: Of course it can.
Steph Cooke: Thank you to all of our emergency services workers and the ambulance staff and our health workers, of course, they all give so much all year round, including at times of the year like this.
Dave Eisenhauer: It's so true, we're talking this morning about our council staff. There
have bin collections these days, run every single day, including Christmas Day, our Police, Fire and Rescue, New South Wales Ambulance, our VRA, it's 24 /7, 366 days of the year this year being a leap year,
but Steph Christmas time is a time for families and celebration But it's also a time like we spoke with the Reverend Harvey and Liz Sloan this morning, the time of sadness for some people as well too, but we send Christmas wishes out to every single person all the time we
play the wonderful songs and we talk about some wonderful stories,
From the year that's been Steph Cooke, and Steph last before we get off to the news last Christmas messages from you for the year, because this is our last chat for 2024.
Steph Cooke: I can't believe how quickly the time has gone, Dave, but look, it's been wonderful to spend the time on air with you this year, updating our communities on what's happening across the region from a New South Wales Parliament perspective.
And as 2024 draws to a close, I'd like to wish everyone a happy and joyous time ahead.
You do make the important point that for some people it is a time of deep sadness and reflection on loss and difficult times and challenges, but I think if we all pull together as small communities are known to do, and do very very well, then we will have a lovely Christmas and we will be well set up for a busy 2025.
Dave Eisenhauer: Indeed, Steph and look to you and the family and especially to those beautiful little pups of yours. I saw them on, I was on Facebook the other day there in various guises. All the very best to you Steph. Hopefully you'll get a little bit of time off from the amazing amount of work Steph. These tracks and trails you travel on, we're trying to work out the mess. It's tens of thousands of kilometres every month, it's phenomenal.
Steph Cooke: Yeah, it's a big electorate. I feel very, very privileged to always have to serve the people of the Cootamundra electorate. I've never, ever taken it for granted, I never will. And at times like this towards the end of the year, when I do have those down times, it's an opportunity for me to reflect personally on everything that has been achieved, but what we really need to do going forward, perhaps where I haven't done things the way that I would have on reflection. It's a good time if you just to stop and have a good think about where you're up to and what the future looks like.
And thank you for mentioning my three little puppy dogs. I've got two that are very well behaved, and I've got that one, the youngest one, Peggy, she chewed up the gardening gloves yesterday, Dave, so this morning she wasn't so cute, I'd be crankier than I am, that's for sure.
But at least I know what I'll be getting for Christmas, it'll be replacement gardening gloves. Something about that goat leather, Dave, she just loves it.
Dave Eisenhauer: They're great company and they're good friends, but Steph Cooke’s discovered that the Christmas shopping has become just a little bit easier after yesterday.
Steph Cooke: Absolutely, and the same to you, Dave, and I look forward to catching up with you in 2025.
Dave Eisenhauer: And Steph, all the very best for you for Christmas and you. Thank you so
much for your time and we are certainly, it's only a few weeks and we'll be back
on deck again talking more. Steph, thank you for joining us today.
Steph Cooke: Sounds wonderful, Thanks, Dave.
Dave Eisenhauer: There you go, Steph Cooke Member for Cootamundra and of course a very Merry Christmas to Steph and the family and of course the three little kids there running around, one naughty one, Peggy, but no, we love catching up with Steph, very important issues there we're talking, especially when we're talking health around the electorate and of course that Wallendbeen bridge, you think well it's outside a lot of areas there but it's not, we all share these roads right across our whole district where we might be travelling for sport and for holidays and going to different markets and car shows and all those sorts of things, so our regional roads come into that one big banner, don't they, wherever they may be, across the Riverina and south and central west districts.
But thank you, Steph Cooke. In a couple of weeks, Steph will be back to join us there as we head through the Christmas New Year break.