Labor again reaffirms Kings Forest position

NSW Labor Leader Michael Daley was in the Tweed this morning.

ON THE TWEED: NSW Labor Leader Michael Daley with candidate for Tweed Craig Elliot and the party faithful in Tweed Heads South. Picture: Michael Doyle

STATE Opposition Leader Michael Daley returned to the Tweed this morning to again reaffirm the party's position on relocating the $534 million Tweed Valley Hospital to Kings Forest.

The existing site at Cudgen has undergone preliminary works, with the land rezoned from State Significant Farmland, but has not yet received DA approval.

Today, Mr Daley hit back at claims the project would be delayed by moving the hospital from the current site, declaring an incoming Labor government would "haul in the bureaucrats to begin work immediately”.

"My commitment is ironclad. Labor will build the hospital in Kings Forest and protect the current hospital from being handed over to developers,” he said.

The proposed hospital site at Kings Forest.

Mr Daley also pledged to keep the existing Tweed Heads Hospital and the Cudgen site in public hands, while claiming Labor would not privatise any health services in the Northern NSW Local Health District.

He also criticised the LNP's "botched” hospital site selection process and the decision to privatise five regional hospitals in NSW.

Tweed MP Geoff Provest has previously said the existing Tweed Heads Hospital would be retained as a public health service, while NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the decision to move the site was "absolutely ludicrous”.

"State Labor appears to have done a deal to try and get the hospital built down at Kings Forest with a developer who is proposing to build residential land there,” he said.

"There's something not quite right. I was around and watched State Labor for 16 years do all sorts of development deals which became emblematic of why they were thrown out of government.

"What this tells me is NSW Labor has not learned the lessons of the past and are not fair dinkum on getting on with the hospital for patients and doctors, they just want to do it for the developer.”