TRANSCRIPT: UNSW WAGGA MEDICAL SCHOOL TOPPING OUTCEREMONY DAY SPEECH AT HARVEY HOUSE, 15 APRIL 2024

Subjects: UNSW Biomedical Sciences Centre, Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network

E&OE 

STARTS: 11:38am

ENDS: 11:43am

MICHAEL McCORMACK

Well, thank you so very much and Tara has kept it to two minutes but I’m not going to because that wasn’t on my instruction sheet. To Aunty Cheryl, thank you for your Welcome to Country and we are on Wiradjuri Country, and I do acknowledge that. You see the building here and you see the year it was constructed —1936. It’s a long time ago. Back in 1936, Wagga Wagga wasn’t even a city, and, of course, our health facilities weren’t as they are now. But there was a time when we were advocating and lobbying for a medical school to move on from the clinical school, set up, as Professor Mackenzie said, in 2000, that this was even a possibility that it could house the medical school. Well, that’s simply not good enough. It’s been a great nurse’s quarters, it’s been a great administrative quarters, it’s been a great clinical school for a Wagga Wagga – there’s no doubt, no question about that. But what we needed was a state-of-the-art, world-class facility and that became possible when, the day I became Deputy Prime Minister, the then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said, “I’ll give you an early win, I’ll give you $100 million to spend on whatever you want, what will it be? Think about it”. I didn’t need to think about because I knew, having lived in Wagga Wagga and surrounds all my life, having visited many, many rural communities, it’s not just the big Wagga Waggas — it’s the smaller towns, it’s the Hillstons, it’s the Deniliquins, it’s the Tumuts, it’s all those little towns which cry out, cry out for doctors, cry out for health professionals. They are the towns, right in the Murrumbidgee Valley, right in the Riverina region, that I knew required a medical school. A medical school run by a wonderful university that could have end-to-end training, that could have a doctor like Maddi or Daniel, who bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, would go there, not have to get on a plane and travel to some far-flung university that could do their training right here in town, right here in this city; and then, when they graduate, hopefully stay in the region. Because we know that with a regional university, when you do your training in a regional university, three-quarters of the graduates stay in that region. And that’s what we’re hoping, that’s what we’re planning with the medical school that UNSW is sponsoring, supporting and making sure it has and will become a tremendous and wonderful reality. And so I said to Malcolm Turnbull, “Well, I want a medical school, I want a Murray-Darling Medical School that stretches throughout rural Victoria, that stretches throughout rural New South Wales, western New South Wales, southern New South Wales”, and I didn’t get the response I wanted so I thought, “Well, I’m not leaving this room until I get your commitment that that is going to be so.” And I know there was some pushback, I know there was some pushback from the AMA, I know there was some pushback from medical students themselves, city-based mind you, against this. But I knew it was needed. And I know that when you have the training, when you have the facilities, when you have the impetus and the dedication and commitment in a rural area, then you will get those students to stay. They’ll fall in love with the area, they might even fall in love with somebody in the area, but they will stay and they will do their life’s work, helping out and supporting the medical outcomes of rural people.  And so what we’ve got today is a Topping Out Ceremony and I am so proud. I am so proud of Lipman, I am so proud of David Blakemore and his hardworking team. They are professional, they are doing a wonderful job. We should be very, very pleased and proud that they are doing this job. I can’t even state how much I’m proud that UNSW is involved in this project. Yes, we’ve got Charles Sturt University in town; and they do a wonderful job too. But to have UNSW; they’ve got the runs on the board with the medical school, they are, yes, based in Kensington, but this is going to be headquartered and centred at Wagga Wagga.  And to that end, I do thank the Rural Medical School Implementation Committee and that’s been supported for many years by Gerard Carroll, by Nick Stephenson, by Kay Hull, by Daryl Maguire while he was in the job and Joe McGirr since taking over as Member for Wagga Wagga — and others. There have been many people on that committee, but they are the core members who have supported this project all along with Jill Ludford and others, Tara Mackenzie, there have been so many people — and don’t get in the way of Zoe either and try and put one over her! But there’s been so many people, so many Wagga Wagga people, passionate people, to make sure that today is becoming a reality and I can’t wait — David tells me September, let’s hope the weather holds, but let’s hope it is September that we have a grand opening and if not, when it happens it will be a grand day, not just for UNSW, not just for Lipman, but for the rural and regional health outcomes of Wagga Wagga, of Riverina, of the Murrumbidgee Valley and our area deserves no less. Thank you very much.

ENDS