BOORT and Pyramid Hill deserved more, veteran MP Peter Walsh said last week.
Announcing this will be his last term in State Parliament, Mr Walsh gave no hint of slowing down in his last 21 months representing local towns.
But he warned there were some significant hurdles to overcome before substantial help could be given to communities.
“I look around this half of my electorate, from Echuca to Boort to Swan Hill and there is much to be done,” he said.
“From our appalling roads, to our underfunded health services, where existing staff are already forced to go above and beyond to keep things working, and an education system in dire need of a reset to provide teachers, students and families with an academic environment in which everyone progresses safely and happily, none of these things can be properly addressed until we get the Victorian budget back under control, and until we can stem the financial bleeding, we will be handcuffed in how much can be done as fast as we know it needs to be done.
“Which is why the number one item on the Liberals Nationals agenda is to get back into government and start repairing the damage of what will prove to be 12 of the blackest years in the history of this state under this Labor government.
“Once we have done that, and once all Victorians are made aware of the true extent of the financial crisis – because believe me, Labor has been working hard and still is, trying to hide as much of those failures as possible – we can start delivering the support towns such as Boort and Pyramid Hill need.”
Mr Walsh’s Murray Plains electorate currently includes Boort, Pyramid Hill and Mitiamo.
In his 22 years as an MP, - first elected to the former seat of Swan Hill in 2002 - his electorate has at times stretched south to also include Inglewood and Wedderburn.
He was agriculture and water minister in the Baillieu-Napthine governments between 2010 and 2014 and was elected Nationals’ leader after the Coalition  was defeated in November 2014.
A key supporter of the Boort Trotting Club, Mr Walsh said he was  concerned about the previous mismanagement of harness racing in Victoria and its potential impact on venues such as Boort “which is the oldest continuous trotting club in Australia – we have to work hard to ensure the harness racing industry prospers, not disappears.”
Mr Walsh said he was concerned about some of the bigger picture issues which threaten some serious impacts at the grassroots level. That included the current State Government’s low-key announcement it is merging our health services into networks.
“As far as I am concerned this is forced mergers by stealth and Boort has been lumped in with Echuca, Rochester, Kerang, Cohuna, Swan Hill and even Mildura, as part of the Loddon Mallee Health Network, which will be headquartered in Bendigo,” he said.
“If you don’t think Premier Allan wants to merge our health systems into a centralised model, with all decisions made elsewhere, why the hell would you have Mildura in the same district as Bendigo – they are more than 400km apart for heaven’s sake.
“That’s so obviously ridiculous to you and me, just as it is ridiculous to assume any of the major health hubs in my electorate will be better off with the big decisions being made in Bendigo, initially, but let’s not kid ourselves, under Labor this control is all moving to Melbourne.”
Mr Walsh says by centralising decision-making and merging regional health services with metropolitan or major regional hospitals, Labor is wiping out local jobs and the ability to prioritise the unique needs of regional communities. 
“Our regional communities deserve more than being treated like second-class citizens and their local health services stripped of their autonomy.”