He has gone from “Mr three per cent” last election to 18 per cent this time, but it doesn’t seem to have gone to NSW State Member for Tweed, Geoff Provest’s head.
“I’m just off to vacuum the office and take out the garbage,” Mr Provest declared on Sunday morning just hours after the Liberal/National coalition swept to power in one of the most decisive victories in Australian electoral history.
But according to Geoff Provest, there will be little time for celebration.
“We have to clean out the campaign office and get back to the real work by 9am tomorrow,” he said on Sunday morning.
“It’s a great result and an endorsement of how hard we’ve worked over the past four years.”
But it won’t be business as usual. Provest, who is known by his colleagues as “Mr 100 per cent for the Tweed” is now on the other side of Parliament.
Will having a local member who is part of the Government, make a difference to the Tweed? Will some of the issues that residents have wanted addressed, finally start to happen?
In the early days of his second term, Provest seems optimistic.
“We need to finalise the police station,” he said.
“We need a new station.”
Twenty years ago, a Coalition Government announced plans for a new station to service Tweed and the Tweed Coast. The government changed and there was little said on the subject for a number of years. In recent times the location for the new police station on the Cudgen Plateau was rejected by the NSW Department of Planning despite $200,000 being allocated to plan the building.
Also on Mr Provest’s agenda is the local
health system. According to the local member, Tweed Heads hospital is running at 100 per cent capacity and Murwillumbah at 75 per cent.
“In the next two to three years our population is expected to grow by 15,000,” he said
“We have got to find out what we are going to do with our sick and we must do that with proper consultation with our local doctors and nurses.”
And then there is that other great issue facing the Tweed Coast – the Pottsville High School. Also originally proposed more than 20 years ago, the school is still yet to come to fruition.
Mr Provest said there was land reserved adjacent to the present primary school.
He said the Department of Education was currently saying that the new school would not be needed for another 10 years despite an increase in numbers at all the local public schools, Kingscliff High having a population of 1363 and long waiting lists at
local pre-schools.
Also on his wish list, as he prepared to head back to Macquarie Street in Sydney to meet with his coalition colleagues on Wednesday, is an increased co-operation between the NSW and Queensland Governments on cross
border issues.
He said he again pledged to “work tirelessly” for the people of the Tweed.
“Now (with his party in Government) we have a chance of achieving results,” Mr
Provest said.
