Mr Bourke is reported as having “continually been told the hospital can’t attract orthopaedic specialists to the area”.

This is manifestly not the case. There are presently seven orthopaedic surgeons offering clinical services in Nowra. Only two have been offered public hospital appointments to the Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital. Of the remaining five, two have been driven to take public hospital appointments in Wollongong, where they are commonly called upon to treat emergency patients from the Shoalhaven. Both are currently seeking appointment to the Shoalhaven District Memorial Hospital to provide emergency and elective surgical services to uninsured patients.

The fundamental issue limiting Shoalhaven orthopaedic services is a lack of funding and facilities, not a lack of specialists. With a state election looming, both major parties should stand up and declare their position on funding orthopaedic services. It is absurd that a $434 million redevelopment should not include the expansion of orthopaedic services to the ageing population of the Shoalhaven.

I received notice from the council ranger last week for a trip hazard in my back driveway. This has come about because of a confrontation I had with a school mum parking in my driveway blocking access to my rear gates. I asked her nicely not to park there but was told by her that she could as the rangers told her it’s not my property. I have laid out sandstone rocks as a borderline which also help retain soil when it rains. Council paid for an engineer to come out and do a risk assessment and deemed this a trip hazard. I will remove these rocks as I don’t want the public to get hurt. While looking around from where the risk assessment was performed I have noticed the pathway off Cambewarra Road into Karowa Street leads primary school children into the middle of the road. This is an accident waiting to happen as the cars have no parking restrictions and could easily reverse over someone. There is no pathway for pedestrians to walk into Karowa Street. How was this missed when the risk assessment was performed? This is zoned as a street and not a car park and all the cars park illegally on the nature strip yet the rangers have never fine anyone for this. Hopefully this will be rectified before a tragedy happens.

I attended this week's candidates forum for the seat of South Coast at Ulladulla where I asked the following question to South Coast MP Shelley Hancock: When is she going to apologise to the 10,000-plus residents of the South Coast, who signed the petition to electrify the line between Kiama and Bomaderry and to improve capacity, for vacating the Speaker's chair at the time of the the tabling of the petition was announced then being replaced by the deputy speaker?

Mrs Hancock's reply was she had been warned it could be a rowdy group. Really? A small group of members of Unions Shoalhaven aged between 60 and 85 plus Annette Alldrick, the Labor candidate for the seat.

Her reply was that she had had a difficult Question Time at 2.30pm and had an important appointment she had to keep and she did not think she needed to apologise to anyone. 

The South Coast rail petition was tabled in the state parliament at approximately 10.10am on Wednesday, November 14, 2018. Two weeks after it was tabled Shelley Hancock labeled this community action as a political stunt in the South Coast Register on November 28.