A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry into Helen Dalton’s Bill to break the Riverina away from the Murrumbidgee Local Health District has recommended the Bill proceed to a vote on the floor ofParliament.

The Legislative Assembly Committee on Community Services tabled its report this week on the Health Services Amendment (Splitting of the Murrumbidgee Local Health District) Bill 2025, putting the casefor a locally run Western Riverina Local Health District in front of all 93 members of the Legislative Assembly.

Independent Member for Murray Helen Dalton said: “This report puts it in black and white, the current system is not working for the people of Murray, and the people making the decisions have never set foot in most of our hospitals.”

The report records that a Griffith City Council survey of 791 residents found 62.3 per cent want the district split while only 2.8 per cent support the current structure and that the doctors of the Griffith Base Hospital Medical Staff Council were unanimous in wanting Griffith to break away.

It also documents cancer survival rates up to 22 per cent below the national average, patients with broken bones driven hours to Wagga Wagga and left waiting days, a palliative care service downgraded to a phone line, a maternity unit short 14 midwives and a new $250 million Griffith hospital that still has an unopened rehabilitation ward and no MRI machine.

Mrs Dalton said, “Wagga Wagga is a fine city but it is not where my constituents live, and it should not be where every decision about their health gets made.”

One council even told the inquiry the district’s engagement with the community improved since the noise of the split, which shows exactly how much notice they take when country people stay quiet.

“When 97 per cent of Griffith refused to back the current system and our own doctors voted unanimously to break away, you have to ask who the government is actually listening to. This is why we need our own Western Riverina Local Health District run by people who live here, and now every politician in that Parliament has to decide whether they will listen to the people who sent them there,” Mrs Dalton added.