MP faces GP Super Clinic "payback" claim
GP Super Clinics have again become a political football with embattled Labor MP Craig Thomson accused of retaliating against a NSW council because it complained about the slow progress of its promised Super Clinic.
The MP, who is facing allegations of misusing a Health Services Union credit card, is alleged to have threatened to cancel funding for a local jobs project on the NSW Central Coast after the Wyong Council endorsed a motion about the failure to deliver the Warnervale GP Super Clinic.
Speaking in Senate yesterday, Liberal Senator Concetta Fierrevanti-Wells said that when a councillor went on local radio to talk about the Super Clinic motion he was sent a text message by the MP saying “bye bye [jobs] incubator”.
Senator Fierrevanti-Wells said the threat to stop the funding had been referred by the local council to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
She told the Senate that the area had been promised a GP Super Clinic in 2007, but currently only had a temporary facility operating with 2.5 full time doctors. Senator Fierrevanti-Wells said the original plans for a $20 million clinic had been scaled back, and the latest estimates were that the $2.5 million in Federal funding would provide only a further 1.5 GPs when it is completed in perhaps five years.
“Despite the debacle [of the rollout], Mr Thomson has been trying to lay the blame solely at the feet of Wyong councilors,” she said.
“What is motivating the actions? Could it be retaliation?” she asked.
