Would You Vote For This Person?

Former state health minister John Della Bosca rang the New South Wales Health chief asking for her help in the case of a Labor Party member whose vote his federal MP wife, Belinda Neal, wanted in a messy preselection battle.

ALP branch president Louisa Sauvage, 72, has alleged that Ms Neal offered to help fast-track a hip replacement for her but only in return for a vote in next month’s preselection contest for the NSW central coast seat of Robertson.
Ms Neal has been busy lobbying Ms Sauvage and scores of other preselectors in recent weeks because sections of her own party do not want her to recontest the seat, which is Australia’s most marginal.

The office of the NSW Health Minister has confirmed Ms Neal’s husband, former state health minister John Della Bosca, rang NSW Health director-general Debora Picone asking for help to speed up Ms Sauvage’s operation.

The state Health Department has sent a report on the matter to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Last week, Belinda Neal confirmed she offered to speed up the operation while lobbying Ms Sauvage.

Ms Neal said she found a doctor with a shorter waiting list for the 72-year-old, but she never asked for anything in return.

“Louisa Sauvage is a constituent in Robertson and as such, part of my job is to assist her, along with any other person who might approach me,” she told the ABC on Wednesday.

Ms Neal holds the seat of Robinson with a margin of just 0.1 per cent. She won it in 2007 by fewer than 200 votes.

She hit the headlines last year when Prime Minister Kevin Rudd instructed her to take anger management classes after she and her husband were accused of abusing staff at a restaurant

Filed under: N.S.W