All those in favour ...

TWEED Council excluded anyone in favour of a site proposed in Cudgen for a new $534 million hospital from a community reference group.

Council on Thursday selected 13 locals to take part in the group, which will assist councillors in their deliberations with the NSW Government about the new hospital.

Defending the decision Councillor Chris Cherry said it didn’t make sense to listen to people in favour of the government-proposed site.

“It didn’t make sense to fill the reference group with people who only wanted to talk about how good the government’s site was,” she said.

“The NSW Government is the decision-maker on this and it should be doing the community consultation, not us.

“We just believe there are alternative sites out there and we would like to find people in the community who believe that.”

Save Our Hospital Site group organiser Penny Hockings said it was “disgusting’ councillors only wanted to hear views supporting their own.

“They are supposed to be councillors for the whole of the shire but they are not. If you support their views they are for you, but if you don’t they don’t want to hear from you,” she said. “They assume because we have been talking in favour of the Cudgen site we can’t talk about alternative sites. It is ridiculous and disgusting.”