Missed appointments and steamy texts

IT TOOK more than 12 months for the tiny township of Tingha, in the state's north, to win a place in the diary of one of the state's most senior ministers, John Della Bosca.

IT TOOK more than 12 months for the tiny township of Tingha, in the state's north, to win a place in the diary of one of the state's most senior ministers, John Della Bosca.

But on July 10, as the delayed official opening of the town's $5.3 million health centre occurred, Mr Della Bosca was 630km away in Sydney with his younger lover.

It was a disappointment for the 30 to 40 people who had helped fight for the centre.

"There were general smirks among us and the comments 'that would be right' when we found out he'd missed his plane," the hospital's auxiliary president Jenny Hayden told The Daily Telegraph.

"The opening had been put off to fit in with him. We had been operating for a year, but the opening had to coincide with when we could get the minister up. We were given two weeks notification from his office."

But it was also not the only appointment missed that day.

He was supposed to have met with health professionals at Armidale Hospital to discuss the Government's response to the highly critical Garling Report.

Officially, the reason for the minister's no-show was that he missed the boarding call for his flight from Sydney Airport.

Mr Della Bosca claimed last night: "It's not true that I deliberately missed a flight to Armidale."

However, his lover has told The Daily Telegraph that she spoke with him that morning and "the call got a bit 'hot' and he wound up saying he'd rather be with me than flying out". "Then he said, 'you know what? I'll be there soon'," she said.

She said she received a text from Mr Della Bosca at 10.07am on July 10 saying: "I missed my plane!!! Wot are you up to today?"

A report in the regional newspaper The Northern Daily Leader stated that Mr Della Bosca had issued an apology after missing boarding calls.

A Qantaslink spokeswoman later confirmed the flight had to leave to ensure other passengers arrived on time. "Our staff even went looking for them and were paging members of the party," the spokeswoman added. "We could not locate the passenger in question despite using various methods (to contact him)."