POLITICS NO PIECE OF CAKE
ON AUSTRALIA Day new MP Sam O’Connor arrived unannounced at the Gold Coast University Hospital ED with lamingtons. He and staff were warned later to follow protocol. This is bigger than a storm in a teacup because taxpayers are the big losers here.
The 26-year-old also bought pavlova and Tim Tams. A photograph on Facebook showed him along with nurses, doctors and other staff all smiling.
As a visitor to the ED during the Christmas-New Year break, your columnist watched staff in the children’s section working non-stop as they treated kids with ear infections from too much surf to suspected broken bones from bike falls.
Mr O’Connor wanted them to understand they were appreciated. What followed was an internal hospital email of “high importance” warning staff of the “strict guidelines of these visits by MPs” and the social media policy about posting on Facebook.
New Health Minister Steven Miles told the Bulletin an official visit would be organised for the Bonney MP. “I know Sam’s new and he might not know the rules yet.”
But while Labor denies involvement here, there has been a big dark political cloud building on the Coast.
Southport LNP MP Rob Molhoek contacted your columnist and outlined how Labor since 2015 has blocked MPs from visiting local schools, hospitals, emergency services and police stations, feigning “political interference”.
He recalled being denied a visit last year to the Southport Ambulance Station to deliver a new Queensland flag, which the station had requested.
“In 2016 I was denied a briefing and visit to the new Commonwealth Games Centre at Benowa and told I wasn’t even permitted to speak to the CEO without official permission,” he says.
Mr Molhoek recalls being asked by his boys, when they were young, about his job. He responded that he is expected to be “the local eyes and ears of the community”.
“I was elected to represent my community, I am their voice in the Queensland Parliament. That’s real democracy … and real accountability.”
But the reality is Opposition MPs here are contacted privately by our school leaders, experienced coppers and nurses, and when they brief a journalist on critical issues every effort is made to protect those sources and their frontline jobs.
All of this formality was probably fast-tracked after Mudgeeraba MP Ros Bates, a registered nurse and persistent pest to the government in State Parliament, completed a round of hospital visits in 2016.
Her subsequent briefings and a series of Bulletin reports put a focus on safety breaches at the Robina Hospital mental health unit, including unpublicised fires which sparked management reforms.
Please let MPs deliver cakes to hospital EDs. Let those from both sides of politics reach out. It’s good for all of our health.