Barbara Roughan, Kingscliff.
On Saturday 19 January premier Gladys Berejiklian opened Geoff Provest’s new office in Kingscliff with a small audience of stalwart National/Liberal party supporters.
Councillor James Owen posted two videos of the event to his Facebook page. A transcript is available underneath the video, in which he states that the coming state election is a referendum on whether you want a new hospital in Tweed or you want to stop a hospital being built.
He is completely wrong in this statement. The community outrage expressed has never been about stopping a hospital being built, but wanting the unsuitable location changed to a better site.
Everyone in this community recognises the need for a new hospital, that has never been the issue. The issue is that this government has made a flawed choice , as written by many experts in their responses to the EIS statement. Even the NSW Dept of Primary Industries is against the choice of state significant farmland, warning that once the precedent has been set, the rest of the adjacent farmland will be similarly destroyed for further hospital related developments.
Councillor Owen’s false comments demonstrate that spreading misinformation is a device used by someone desperate to have the truth suppressed. Does he think that if an untruth is repeated often enough people will come to believe it?
Relocate Tweed Valley Hospital Team are in full support of a new hospital being built, but not at Kingscliff when more suitable sites are available.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
