INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD SPENCE 1350 2LF YOUNG

Friday, 7 March 2025

Subjects: Cootamundra Pathology, Petition, NSW Governor Visit, Northern Rivers Flooding, Community BBQ, Seniors Festival, Kate Cleary

Richard Spence: Welcome to the studio Member for Cootamundra, Steph Cooke in well, on the phone rather. Steph, good morning.

Steph Cooke: Good morning. Rich it's good to be back with you and your listeners this morning, and I'm coming to you from Parliament House at the moment where there is this process that we go through a couple of times a year called budget estimates.

Richard Spence: Yes,

Steph Cooke: and we're right in the thick of that at the moment, and I have a role to play in that, both as the Member for Cootamundra, because we it's our opportunity to put forward questions to the government about things that are impacting our electorate, and to ask them where programs are up to and where money is being spent and allocated, and what we get for that money, but also I have responsibilities in that space, from a Shadow Minister's perspective, noting that I cover the portfolios of water and crown lands as a shadow so it is an important process. It doesn't get a lot of airtime, and it's different from the sitting weeks that we go through, but nonetheless, it's pretty, pretty important, but I will be pretty pleased to get through today and back to the electorate,

Richard Spence: all right, and you've been very busy around the electorate, as you have always, and the most recent Cootamundra hospital pathology consultation sessions took place last week.

Pathology Chief Executive Vanessa Janison, was there taking questions. You were there as well. What were some of the things that come out of those consultation sessions?

Steph Cooke: I think at the end of the day, that the challenge that we've got around this, proposal to close the laboratory at the Cootamundra hospital is that New South Wales pathology, with the support of their Minister, are really unable to properly articulate and justify their reasons for closing this pathology lab at the end of the day, we've got a fantastic group of highly qualified clinicians pathologists that are based in Cootamundra. They live and work in their local town. They are tremendous advocates for health in our region, and they also contribute extensively to our local community.

We also have a similar group of people working out of the laboratory in Young, and it makes no sense to smash these two services together, to close one lab, to put on four couriers a day to transport blood samples of collections from Cootamundra across to young effectively say to those pathologists in Cootamundra, well, you'll have to now travel to Young to do your work. You can no longer live and work in your local community, and expect that there won't be flow on effects to the rest of our health network and our communities.

So, these are the concerns that we continue to raise, whether it be the impact on staff or whether it be the impact on our local services. We already know that both Young and Wagga hospitals are under significant stress and pressure, and this, we believe, will only increase with this decision, should it proceed, so we will continue to advocate for this.

The next steps, there's a couple of things yet to happen. The first one is, we have requested a meeting with pathology, with Ab McAllister as the Mayor, myself, and the local doctors and other allied health professionals in Cootamundra itself, because one of the issues that we had is that pathology are happy to communicate that the doctors are happy with this decision. I can assure you, having spoken privately with them, that is actually not the case, and so we are looking to set that meeting up. We're hoping that New South Wales pathology will agree to meet with the doctors and Ab and myself to explain their changes, and how this won't result in poor outcomes for patients, because we know in health that every minute matters, and when you are facing a critical incident, whether it's a snake bite or kidney or liver difficulties, every single minute matters, and it's not necessarily the difference between life or death that is certainly a real risk that we're worried about, but we're also worried about people's quality of life after an incident occurs.

So, you might survive that incident, and we and we, you know, hope and we work to that outcome. But what is the quality of your life beyond that, there might be ongoing issues, ongoing complications for a patient that would not otherwise exist if your bloods were able to be taken and analysed immediately in Cootamundra, on the spot, as they always have been, and then treatment applied accordingly, rather than waiting for those samples to be turned around to either Wagga or Young and then deciding what happens with the patient from there.

That’s, I guess, the nuts and bolts of where we're up to at this point in time. There is also an upcoming meeting with the Health Minister himself, and I look forward to that that's in a couple of weeks.

And finally, our petition is still going, we have seven and a half thousand or thereabouts, signatures already, people in Young and your whole listening area. If you haven't yet signed the petition, please do so. We desperately need to get this petition up so that we can bring this issue before the floor of the New South Wales parliament. There is another petition that will be debated ahead of ours, and that's with respect to the closure, the closure and the operating hours of the Wee Waa hospital. This is happening right across regional New South Wales, and it's about time that we had our collective voice heard on the floor of the Parliament, and that's what we're trying to achieve.

Richard Spence: Yeah, heard that about Wee Waa hospital emergency department 9am to 5pm weekdays. It's a bit ridiculous Now, last week, Steph, I did have the opportunity to speak to New South Wales Health pathology Chief Executive, Vanessa Janison, to try to get some perspective, get some answers on why this decision is being made, and I don't think we got anything definitive out of her response.

Steph Cooke: I would agree with you, Rich. I listened to that interview very closely, because, like many people in the community, I too, am trying to understand what is at the  root of this issue. Why? Why do they need to close Cootamundra pathology? There is nothing that Cootamundra pathology is not doing that would justify this lab being closed. They are fully staffed, they're able to undertake all of the testing that they do today without any issues at all.

There has never been any issues raised with me around the accreditation of the laboratory itself and whether it's fit for purpose or up to standard. None of those issues have ever been raised, and so you're really left wondering what, what are they trying to achieve here, and how will our communities benefit from it? and when they're unable to explain the change, regardless of who is asking them, you're not the first person to have asked those questions. Rich, very, very glad you did. You won't be the last one to ask those questions, and it doesn't seem to matter who asked or under what conditions, the answers are not sufficiently forthcoming.

And that is why we will continue to fight tooth and nail to keep this laboratory open. Because we also know two things, when some when a service like this closes, it will never return. It just simply won't we have a history of this. And the second thing that happens is that it becomes the thin end of the wedge, where other services, particularly those that are so reliant on pathology, then become even more fragile themselves and also likely to close.

And we know the difficulties we've had in Cootamundra itself recently around maternity and theatre, and this will just be another nail in the coffin for local health services, and we've really got to stand up and fight against it.

Richard Spence: and hopefully your common sense prevails on this. In the end, it's that city centric sort of governance, and if you missed my chat with Vanessa Janison, you can hear that on our website 2lf.com.au, and you can just find the interview there.

Now, just moving on to some other things, now, Steph, yeah, there was a visit from the New South Wales Governor to our electorate.

Steph Cooke: We had the New South Wales governor in our electorate for the fourth time last week, and this time, she was here for over two days, which was absolutely fantastic. We had the opportunity to be with the Governor while she toured the Evolution gold mine out in the Bland Shire, visit Lake Cowal and all the wonderful things that are happening in the environment space out there.

She also attended a mayoral reception in West Wyalong, visited schools and the hospital in West Wyalong, and then moved on to Coolamon and experienced the cheese factory there, and then on to Junee for quite a large reception there. Amongst other things, that's just a few of the highlights.

This is the fourth time that the New South Wales Governor has come to our electorate in her term, which is absolutely extraordinary, and I'm very proud to have played a role in her itinerary on these occasions, particularly this last one. And she's always welcome, of course, in our in our electorate and it's good, a good opportunity for us to not just showcase the wonderful things that are happening in small rural communities, but also to communicate some of those challenges that we are experiencing, and to ensure that right the way back down to the city. People are aware of what's happening in our part of the world. So, Her Excellency had had a good time, I think, and we would welcome her back in a heartbeat.

Richard Spence: Yeah, that's terrific to hear now, as people in the northern part of the state and southeast Queensland are bracing for cyclone Alfred, Lismore Three years later, expecting flooding again, Harden and Murrumburrah, of course, that with that hailstorm just a few weeks ago, disaster declaration was in place, a storm recovery process. There is a recovery assistance barbecue coming up next week.

Steph Cooke: Yeah, look a couple of things there. Rich. Everyone listening will know that in 2022 from a period of 21 to 23 I had the great honour and privilege of being the New South Wales Emergency Services and flood recovery Minister during unprecedented flooding the likes of which our state had never seen before, and I’m certainly hoping that on this occasion, with respect to those Northern Rivers communities, they do not see a repeat of what we went through in 22 because it was absolutely horrific, and we know that those communities are still recovering from 2022 how can they not be? It was only three years ago, and we always said that that recovery would take years and years and years, and now they are facing a significant event and a significant setback, which may be at a similar level to 22 there are some people talking about that. I hope it doesn't reach that level, but whatever level it does reach, it does represent a setback for those communities on their road to recovery, from 2022.

I continue to keep in touch with so many people from that region, from my time as Minister, I'm thinking about them constantly around the clock, and I know that people in our region are as well. And to that extent, we do have SES and RFS brigades on standby for deployment up there, should they be needed? There's already 2000 on the ground up in that Northern Rivers region. We'll see what happens over the days and weeks ahead, and I know that our volunteers, who do a magnificent job every day to keep our community safe, will up and leave our area and go and help others in their time of need, and as local member, I'm really, really proud of those efforts.

And to bring it right back home, you are right next Tuesday, we are going to have a community event and a barbecue and we'll have our emergency services people there anyone who is available to come together after the event that struck Harden a few weeks ago, that recovery is well underway, and I'm so proud of the community there and how everybody has pulled together. They're very, very, very challenging times, as we have seen. There's a little more work to do in Harden and that recovery effort, again, it will take months to restore Parklands and other facilities for insurance claims to come through and repairs to be undertaken to people's houses and properties, but we're there for that long journey, and I think to pause and have a community barbecue. I'll be there. So, if anybody wants to raise anything with me, they can. I think it's really important that we take those moments to pause and spend time together and reflect on what's happened and be inspired about the future, because, you know, we will come out the other side of these things we always do and we want to do, so really, really positive about the future.

Richard Spence: And that barbecue is on Tuesday at four o'clock, but the session is on from 11am to 6pm at Newsome Park and just finally, back to the Northern Rivers. I suppose a point of difference this time to last time is there's a lot more time to prepare. We know it's coming.

Steph Cooke: Yeah, we certainly didn't have that sort of forecasting available to us in 2022 a lot has changed in that time. The other, the other aspect of it that I'm really proud of, is that coming out of the independent flood inquiry that that we undertook and I oversaw as Minister in 2022 our emergency services agencies received unprecedented funding to scale up their equipment, their resources, the resources that their volunteers need, everything from communications to uniforms, boats, life jackets, every single emergency service organization of which there are seven in New South Wales now has equipment and resources at their fingertips that we did not have in 2022, so I'm pleased to see that now being stood up when it is needed most, as it should be, as it was always intended, and it's, it's really great to see.

I think the other major difference is that we came off a pretty wet year in 2021 and so by the time we got to 2022 the landscape right across New South Wales was pretty well saturated. Our dams were full, so were our rivers and so then, when it came to March and then onwards through the rest of the year, we saw unprecedented flooding right across New South Wales, because the landscape was already so saturated. It would seem in this particular event that the threat is very much limited or restricted to that Northern Rivers region, which is not a small area, I might add, it's it is still a very large area, but at least it's not being replicated right across New South Wales, it would seem, at this at this point in time.

So obviously it's an area that I still follow with tremendous interest and great care for those communities, and I'm really thinking of them as I know people right across our region are at this time.

Richard Spence: Yeah, we certainly are. And moving on to some lighter things now, we've got the Seniors Festival happening. We've got the Hilltops off the beaten track arts and cultural trail kicking off this weekend, and there's been some shows you've attended as well, Koorawatha and Boorowa.

Steph Cooke: Look, there's plenty happening in our communities as always Rich, and I think one of the one of the comments that people make to me on a regular basis is that I'm sort of everywhere as local member, and I'm, you know, attending so many different functions and different events, and how can you not when there are just so many fantastic things happening in our community and so many dedicated volunteers that make these events happen.

And once again, we've seen the Boorowa show, the Koorawatha show, two fantastic agricultural shows with so many people involved and attending, and it was great to be out and about at those. We’ve got the Seniors Festival kicking off plenty of events for people to get involved with there, and if you want more information, certainly reach out to my office.

And finally, the Hilltops off the beaten track arts and cultural trail, it kicks off this weekend. The arts community is so strong right across the hilltops, they work very, very hard to put this showcase on for us every year, and I would encourage everyone in the community to find one or two events and really get out and support the community in that way, support our volunteers, but most importantly, have fun, connect with other people and enjoy what this what this festival has to offer.

Richard Spence: for sure, and just finally, a local lady, a finalist New South Wales regional Woman of the Year. Kate Cleary,

Steph Cooke: yes. Kate Cleary, who runs the farm in Galong, as it is known, has just yesterday morning, I was with her at the International Convention Centre at Darling Harbor, where she was named as one of only four finalists for regional, New South Wales Woman of the Year, just an incredible feat. She was so well deserving of being a finalist. I perhaps am a little biased, I think she deserved to win it, but all of the women involved were very, very inspirational, and the work that Kate is doing to assist women who have found themselves, I guess, in on the wrong track in life and finding some significant difficulties with drug and alcohol addiction, with being separated through court orders from their children. These are women who and mothers who are in a very, very difficult time in their life, and they come to The Farm, and Kate and her, her small team, but extremely dedicated team, do everything that they can to wrap around that woman, that Mother, get their lives back on track. It's a long stay rehabilitation program. Their children are able to have facilitated visits. The ultimate aim, of course, is to get that person's life back on track, have families reunited, and for people to live to their full potential.

The work that Kate is doing, I cannot stress highly enough, is absolutely extraordinary. It's very important work, and that's why she's been nominated for this award by myself. She was a state finalist, which goes to show how important this work is and the fantastic work that she's doing. And we wish her and her team all the very best since the future.