Hearing the voices of young people

November 29, 2021

I've had wonderful opportunities to be around young people in the last few weeks. On Friday night I joined a group of young women who are part of the EViE Project, which is aimed at ending violence and improving equality, at the Blue Mountains Women's Health and Resource Centre. Supported by Zonta Blue Mountains, there were messages of what coercive control looks like illuminated onto the windows of the Springwood hub by illuminart, as part of...

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GP shortages in the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains

November 29, 2021

GPs across the Hawkesbury and Blue Mountains have raised with me their fears about patients facing long waits to be seen and doctors and staff being stretched like never before. They call it a crisis, and it isn't caused by just COVID, although a lack of a hub in the electorate created extra work for GPs. But even before COVID some had closed their books to new patients.

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Global Polio Eradication Initiative

November 29, 2021

Like many of my generation, my first exposure to polio was reading Alan Marshall's I Can Jump Puddles. I have since met people who survived polio and I note that some of those survivors are now experiencing post-polio syndrome in their later years. But, essentially, we've worked together to completely eradicate polio in the developed world and we're close to getting rid of it everywhere. Vaccination is the only effective preventative measure a...

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He will blame anyone else rather than take responsibility

November 25, 2021

We thought things were pretty bad when former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who promised no cuts to the ABC and SBS, no cuts to health and no cuts to education, did just that when he came to office. He cut every one of those things. He broke promises. We thought that was a new low in politics. But this country has never seen anyone quite like Prime Minister Morrison, a man who acts only in his own interests and does not act in the interests of a...

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Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Select Committee

November 25, 2021

There have been many reports into Australia's mental health system, and its failures are well known and widely discussed: high costs for many patients and terrible shortages of psychologists and psychiatrists that mean long waits, long distances to travel or people simply not seeking the help that they need. That's particularly the case for children, with big gaps in treatment for eating disorders, failures of community care and a horrific sui...

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Recognising TTS

November 23, 2021

I rise to speak on behalf of a Blue Mountains family whose daughter Katie died at the age of 34 in August this year as a result of taking the AstraZeneca vaccine. She is one of nine deaths the TGA reports as linked to AstraZeneca and one of eight who developed TTS. To use the words of her dad, Ian, Katie was a 'vibrant, healthy woman with no pre-existing medical conditions' living in Sydney's inner west. She was a writer, comedian and performe...

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