INTERVIEW WITH DAVE EISENHAUER FM 96.3 SOUNDS OF THE MOUNTAINS

Thursday, 24 April 2025

Subjects: Cootamundra Pathology Petition, Cootamundra Rifle Club, ANZAC Day

Dave Eisenhauer: Joining us right now, Member for Cootamundra, Steph, Cooke is on the line, good morning Steph,

Steph Cooke: good morning, Dave. It's great to be back with you and your listeners this morning.

Dave Eisenhauer: And Steph, we really appreciate your time joining us as well on what is a beautiful morning, but we were just talking to Alan Lanyon and deal with dry weather. Steph, it's certainly dry enough around the region at Brown through the electorate.

Steph Cooke: Oh, look, it really is Dave, and it's it is moving into concerning territory around this dry weather. No one wants to use the word drought, and certainly not too quickly, but there is no question, I mean, we've, we've been watching for months and months now the conditions deteriorate in South Australia and in western Victoria and in western New South Wales, and now we're starting to see that really creep east. So, as I move across the electorate, there are very few areas of the electorate now that aren't in real need of rain, so we really hope that that's on its way. But certainly, as I move around our communities, people are starting to openly talk to me about their concerns, it’s just not raining as we need it to.

Dave Eisenhauer: It's I mean, we had a couple of mills, I think some of the gages registered a mill or so overnight, yesterday afternoon, but we're just not getting the bigger rains. I know we were talking to some farmers at Lockhart way, and you know, everything's sown out there, Canola is up, but if we don't get that drink around Steph, it's going to whack those properties around a hell of a lot. So let's see we're going to when it does run, we're going to see a real, true autumn break.

Steph Cooke: Look, I can only hope so, and really not before time, and I think you really do make a great point in so far as those crops are largely in now, I was up around the Grenfell and Goolagong area yesterday, and there's still a lot of sowing going on, but there's almost all of it's been done, and I think you know that sort of psychological cut off for crops is that Anzac Day, isn't it? Most farmers like to get their crops in by then. So, what we really need to see now is the rain to bring them along.

Dave Eisenhauer: Steph, let's have a look at some things that have been happening around the electorate, and especially, I'd love to mention today, just to find out how the health petition is heading along. You go up towards the number that we require. This is very important.

Steph Cooke: Thanks, Dave, look, it's the most important advocacy project on my list at the moment. I mean, there's always a lot going on across the electorate, and we do fight for causes one on one, but this petition to save pathology laboratory at the Cootamundra hospital is absolutely critical. It is not just about the people that work in that laboratory and how the people of the Cootamundra area are serviced. It signals a strong message around our health services in general, and the fact that they need to be strengthened and not slashed and certainly not closed down altogether.

So, we have been running this petition now since the 14th of December, and I can report to you and your listeners that we are now over that 9000 mark, which is absolutely incredible. We haven't had this up and going six months yet. So, this is a great outcome so far, and I have to remind people as well that and myself, I might add, that there is no single community in the Cootamundra electorate that has 9000 or 10,000 people.

So, what it requires is for all of us to pull together to make sure that our voice is heard. So, the fact that we're at 9000 is fantastic, but we're not quite there yet. We need 10,000 to be able to bring it to the Parliament, and I think to have a little buffer up our sleeve. We're going to need a few more than that, because you can only sign this petition once, and we had a number of people, and I can understand why they are so desperate, particularly in the township of Coota itself, they're so desperate to see the right outcome here that they have signed it more than once, right? So, we do need to have a little throw up our sleeve. So again, I'm just putting a call out, and it doesn't just have to be to people in our electorate. It can be anyone in New South Wales on the electoral roll.

So, to your listening audience, down in Tumut or Batlow or Adelong, those places that will also be affected in one way, shape or form, by what happens in our health services in rural New South Wales. If you could give us a hand, we'd be so appreciative, and it's very easy to get hold of the petition. Probably the easiest way is just to reach out to our office and we'll walk you through it, but we just need that last 1000 or so signatures. Which will allow us to table it and have the debate in Parliament.

Dave Eisenhauer: And as you mentioned, it can come from anywhere, not just that, the Cootamundra electorate. Steph, so anyway, and also we mentioned this last time, we keep an eye on other services around the region, if they're talking and trying to do this around the Cootamundra district, who knows what's next?

Steph Cooke: That's exactly right, and what we also know about this particular decision, because it was noted in the parliamentary inquiry that Joe McGirr heads up around rural and regional health, that if the pathology laboratory at the Coota hospital closes, it puts at risk two other critical services, being maternity and theatre. And we know that those services are intrinsically linked to the broader community and the broader region, because every time that a service like that closes in Cootamundra, it's going to put additional pressure on Wagga and those hospitals around your part of the world down there that are out of my electorate, but very, very close, they also rely on Wagga. So, every time, everyone just keeps piling into Wagga because there's nothing left at our local hospitals. The greater pressure it puts on every single community.

But we are all interconnected and linked when it comes to health, and so if you're sitting on that petition form and it's on your kitchen bench or you just haven't got around to it yet, now is a really good time to get that sorted. And then I can also stop nagging everybody to sign the petition and get it back into us.

Dave Eisenhauer: Well, it's important that people think I don't need that service. One day, you may very well need that service, I think, into the future as well. To get those, those last 1000 signatures in Steph, that's important now.

Steph Cooke: exactly.

Dave Eisenhauer: Let's have a look. Steph, I know we're talking in the community service file at the moment here about our local gun clubs, and of course, we've got to come and try day. They have these events quite often around our clubs and the clay target shooting. Have you come and try day coming up on Saturday the 10th of May? Let's look at some funding for local clubs in New South Wales, and this is part of the government's safe shooting program.

Steph Cooke: Yeah. Look, it's, it's an important program. We, when I was part of the coalition government, we had this program, the Labor government in New South Wales has continued on with that program, and we're very pleased that they are continuing to support our shooting clubs right across New South Wales and in the Cootamundra electorate. In the latest round, I was very pleased to support a couple of applications that have turned out to be quite successful.

So, we've got the Cootamundra rifle club has been granted $37,000 and that will be to install a solar power system, which will power their clubhouse and their toilet block and one of their sheds up there, and so for all of the many decades that that club has been around, they've never been on power. So, every time they have one of their events, they, you know, fire up the generator to boil the jug, so to speak. So, this will really, this will be a game changer for that club, and they are so excited and dropping out there and having a chat with them about what this means, was really heartening. And they'll get on and get that work done over the next few months, and now, for everybody that turns up to the Coota rifle club for one of those, those try out days, or for one of the competitions that they run, you, you, I think you'll be pretty impressed with where that's all headed.

Dave Eisenhauer: And of course, they travel these clubs, especially the gun clubs in the district pistol closet, or they travel around and support each other in a very big district. So, it's benefiting the whole wider community, not just around, say, for example, in the Cootamundra. That's for other visitors that are coming into town as well, making it just that a little bit more convenient.

Steph Cooke: Aww too right, and you make a great point, Dave, these shooters, they come from everywhere, hundreds of kilometres, in some cases, some stay overnight, and so we're constantly welcoming people into our communities, and it's really nice to have those great amenities that just make an event that little bit easier to run. And power is just one of those things we take for granted, generally speaking, these days, but when these clubs were first created and formed, they didn't have power. So now it's bit of a catch up in some respects. But the Cootamundra rifle club has come such a long way in the last few years, being out there and seeing the new facilities and what they're working on is really heartening, and this $37,000 will just go that, that little bit further to making their facility fantastic.

Dave Eisenhauer: Steph ride to give, this is fundraising for Boys to the Bush. I know we've got Lee Kernighan and Lee from Corryong, sings that song, Boys from the Bush, similar story. This is a Ride to give, tell us a bit about this one.

Steph Cooke: This was a fantastic fundraising event, Dave. We have an organisation called Boys to the Bush. They're in a number of locations around New South Wales, and we have a permanent base for them here in Young, and they do travel and do outreach in a number of other communities, like Temora and Cootamundra, and they're actually linked in with a similar establishment out in Leeton. So, they sort of cover this whole area between Young and Leeton.

And they work really closely with young men, teenage boys, who are really at a fork in the road around their future, and they can either reach their full potential or they can potentially get, you know, get off track and where we don't really want them to be. And they do fantastic work, but of course, so much of what they do relies on either government grants or fundraising. And recently, there was a big charity ride for them, and it's raised in excess of $500,000 which is just extraordinary coming out of corporates and also our small communities, riders who gave up, you know, weeks of their life to either train for the event, and or, you know, take time out of work to come and do the event.

And they rode from Dubbo all the way down to Leeton and stopped in many of our little towns and communities along the way, which, you know, was great for the kids and great for the riders, and I had the opportunity to have dinner with them one night in Temora, and you can't help but be inspired by their dedication to what is a really, really great cause.

Dave Eisenhauer: There's always some wonderful fundraising happening around our region. Steph, when you just look around, even just the simple street stalls you see down around our towns, aren't they terrific things too, and this, there's wonderful community volunteers that get together like right to give.

Steph Cooke: Yeah, definitely, Dave and the street stall, as long as you've got a good lamington, I can't walk past the street stall with lamingtons. It's just not possible.

But yeah, look, we have so many wonderful community organisations who just keep turning up, don't they? Week after week after week, and as you say, it's not just about the fundraising itself. That's just so that they can actually do what their main purpose is, which is to look after vulnerable people and other really important causes in our community. So, they've got this sort of dual role of both conducting the organisation's mission as well as fundraising, so it can do its mission. And so, anything that we can do to support our local charities, whether it's through those street stalls, or the raffles that they run, or some of these bigger events that occur, I think it's really good to see the community rally.

Dave Eisenhauer: Steph, you get up towards the news, we must talk Anzac Day, and we briefly mentioned at the start, but of course, Anzac Day tomorrow, we've got Dawn services happening in all our towns. Lena Elphick from the Gundagai RSS sub brands sent through the details, but all the district, right across the whole region, including, of course, you'll be at Wombat tomorrow, but a few people, there's actually some of the friends visited wombat last week, Reverend Harvey Sloan, and, of course, Liz Sloan, they've been out there for many years at Wombat, the beautiful little spot there Norms hubcaps there on the side of the road many years ago. It's a famous little spot. It's one of many towns in the electorate doing something very special tomorrow.

Steph Cooke: Look absolutely Dave and wombat is a beautiful little village, a great community, and I'd, I'd highly recommend it for anybody to visit on your way through to other places, or indeed, just to just to drop in as a as a destination trip. And that's where I will start Anzac Day tomorrow, as I have done every year since becoming the member for Cootamundra, it's almost become the that that one service each year that I that I dedicate myself to start the day, and then I will move on to Cowra for the main service, and back to Stockinbingal for the afternoon service.

But there are 50 services occurring in the Cootamundra electorate tomorrow. It's a lot, isn't it? and I do experience a small amount of frustration at this time every year, because whilst there's three to four services that I can attend, there's also, you know, 40 odd services that I can't, which is very frustrating for me as the local member, and it takes me many, many years to circle around all of our communities, because they all hold their services at the same time, which is understandable, and it's certainly not about me, but it's just I really like to be out and about in our communities and standing with them as we can commemorate and pay our respects to those who have Served our country with distinction, regardless of rank, and who, in many cases, have paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms that we enjoy as a country today and our way of life out here in the country where we know that, especially in the smaller communities, we paid a disproportionately high price.

When you look at those memorials, the names that are on our war memorials, our whole families were desperately impacted, tragically impacted by our wars over the years, starting with the First World War, or even earlier, in some of the cases, for some of our memorials and communities. So, it's an important time that we stop and reflect, and I'd really, really like to see our young people turn out in force tomorrow so that, I guess that's a bit of a call out to the to the parents and carers and grandparents, please make sure that our young people continue to appreciate the price that's being paid for their freedoms today and into the future. Dave Eisenhauer: My Word and so much volunteer work goes in our RSL sub-branches and people, of course, attribute tomorrow to Wombat local Neil Barry at the dawn service. So, we always have something special to mention, but I'm seeing over the years. Steph, more and more you mentioned the younger people, more and more of the younger service, family service personnel and women families turning up to the services, especially the dawn service, lots of kids coming along. Steph, isn't it terrific to see?

Steph Cooke: Yeah, look, it really is, Dave, and I guess for those young people that have got a direct connection through their family, with those with those conflicts. It's really great to see those family legacies continue and that tradition continue. And I think what I'd like to see into the future is young people more broadly, whether you have a direct connection or not, to continue to show up and just reflect and pay tribute to those people that have served.

Dave Eisenhauer: absolutely and Steph Cooke, thank you for all you do, as well as spare you mentioned the travel. Like all our state and federal politicians, I mean, when going down the federal line, they're doing enough of that themselves at the moment, but from a state level, which is our real home local government areas, Steph, thank you for all you do and for joining us each and every fortnight for a chat as well. Is there anything else that you'd like to mention before we head off to the news? Steph.

Steph Cooke: oh Dave, just thank you for your community service as well, and I know that you're in the middle of building works there, so that comes with its own challenges. It'll be great when it's done, of course, and I look forward to joining you in a fortnight's time. Hopefully we'll be at 10,000 by then. Let's see if we can't get to 10,000 in the next fortnight.

Dave Eisenhauer: Wouldn't that be good? Let's hope so.

Steph Cooke: I bet you we will. I hope so. Let's see what we can do.

Dave Eisenhauer: Good on you, Steph. Thank you. Bye. Now there you go, of course. Member for Cootamundra, the Honourable Steph Cooke joining us, as we do each and every Thursday fortnight here on the local station. We'll catch up with Steph in a couple of weeks time.