CONSTITUENCY STATEMENTS

Ms McKENZIE (Flinders) (10:13): After 12 years of Victorian Labor, the people of the southern Mornington peninsula are still waiting for a hospital that is fit for purpose. The Rosebud Hospital serves a growing and ageing population in a region that welcomes millions of visitors every year. Its facilities are outdated, its emergency department is overwhelmed, surgery and maternity are long since closed, and today's patients are regularly rerouted to Frankston for treatment.

Local residents are forced to privately fundraise for essential medical equipment, including a new CT scanner. They do a mighty job, but, in 2026, a community shouldn't have to pass the hat to fund essential equipment. The hardworking doctors and nurses of Rosebud Hospital deserve better, our elderly residents deserve better, and families across the southern peninsula deserve to have the confidence that quality health care is available close to home.

Last night, the candidates for Nepean gathered to talk through the future of the southern Mornington peninsula, and there were fine words about the importance of the hospital from the Greens, the indies and PHON. Shamefully, the Labor chair was empty 44 days from the state election, and there is still no Labor candidate for Nepean, a seat that they held between 2018 and 2022.

Only one candidate promised the public funds to rebuild the Rosebud Hospital, and that was Liberal candidate, Anthony Marsh, who, together with Jess Wilson, our leader, and Georgie Crozier, the shadow health minister in Victoria, have repeatedly turned up, repeatedly listened and repeatedly inspected the conditions of the hospital. They have looked at their budget, and they have committed the funds necessary to rebuild Rosebud Hospital, starting as soon as the state government gets the fresh start it needs in November.

The state election will also be essential for my region getting the attention it so desperately needs to address. homelessness. My region has the highest incidence of homelessness outside the Melbourne CBD. Over the years, various efforts have been made to invest in crisis accommodation.

Plans have been mounted and eventually aborted due to the lack of interest from the Victorian state government and challenges that are sometimes faced at the planning level in council. Hundreds of public housing properties have sat empty over the years, sometimes for maintenance and sometimes for other reasons, while we lose lives in tents on the front beach.

I commend the work of the state Liberal members, Anthony Marsh in Nepean and Chris Crewther in Mornington, who have committed more to support the local work of Fusion, which provides accommodation and support for young people who are homeless. Together with Chris, Anthony and the member for Dunkley, Jodie Belyea, we have been fighting for fusion so we can expand and meet what feels sometimes like a bottomless need for crisis accommodation, particularly for young families.

The southern Mornington Peninsula is a place of dire and urgent need. Anthony has committed a future coalition government to support the work of the Southern Peninsula Community Support centre, led by the extraordinary Jeremy Maxwell and his tireless team, and I have been working with the Special Envoy for Social Housing and Homelessness, the member for Macnamara, and more recently directly with the minister for housing and her team to support the women's community housing project in Rosebud.

I thank her for her attention and engagement across party lines. A division having been called in the House of Representatives— Sitting suspended from 10:16 to 10:29