http://www.tv.aspark.com.au - Jon Sullivan takes on a local resident.
Update: Hedley Thomas From: The Australian September 03, 2010 12:00AM.
AFTER Robert Murphy made an impassioned plea about failings in the health system in the crucial 48 hours before the federal election, Labor Party heavyweights drew breath and feared the worst.
The unemployed Brisbane factory hand, a father of two, sounded credible and struck a chord at a public forum of political candidates when he spoke of a two-year delay for specialist attention his six-year-old son, Bailey, needed.
"It's taken two years for my son - to take him to the doctor to get him diagnosed - because we don't have the money to actually go and pay for a specialist to get him diagnosed so he can get the proper help that he needs at school. He's undiagnosed," Mr Murphy told the federal Labor parliamentarian, Jon Sullivan, during a live broadcast hosted by ABC radio's Madonna King.
In one of the greatest gaffes of the election campaign - a gaffe that Bob Hawke said had cost Labor the seat and might still result in a change of government - Mr Sullivan replied to Mr Murphy: "What parent would wait two years to get a child, who they believe has a disability, to get to a specialist?"
Now, however, Mr Murphy wants to set the record straight. He admits he was being less than truthful when he spoke up.
Mr Murphy told The Australian yesterday that over the past three years since their move to Queensland from Victoria, he and his wife, Michelle, had not been on any long waiting lists to see a specialist. They have barely waited at all. And the specialists have said there is nothing wrong with Bailey.
"I was a little bit confused when I spoke up, and what I said was stupid," he said.
"We were not waiting for two years. We are not on any waiting lists and we have never been on any waiting lists."
The couple has seen a pediatrician at a private hospital in Caboolture, 50km north of Brisbane, at least twice. They have seen another pediatrician at the local public hospital twice, after a wait of mere weeks. They did not bother to turn up for their last appointment. And none of it had been a struggle. Mr Murphy, who flew to Brisbane from Melbourne the day before the forum, received funding from a Brisbane agency to ensure he and his wife could afford the $180 gap payment.
"I want everyone to understand that what I said was not what I meant to say," he said yesterday.
"I feel sick in the stomach every time I think about it . . . I didn't expect that it would cause this much controversy. If I could turn back time and take back what I said, I would do it. The real problem was the pediatricians keep telling us that Bailey is fine - that there's absolutely nothing wrong with him. We don't believe that.
"We want a different diagnosis so that his school can get the funding to give him special attention."
Mr Murphy's wife, Michelle, said the public hospital pediatrician who saw Bailey was "useless", while the private sector pediatrician was "arrogant".
"We have seen so many doctors in Queensland," she said. "I wanted to hit Rob for saying what he said. I'm not really sure what he meant to say, but he was not deliberately trying to stuff everything up. We feel kind of bad about it if it might change the government."
Queensland Labor state secretary Anthony Chisholm said yesterday: "I remember it well - it cost us a seat. What a disaster."
Labor Party internal polling had pegged the seat of Longman as a highly probable win for Mr Sullivan in the days before the public forum.
But the subsequent backlash crippled his electoral prospects, which "just ran out of control". If Julia Gillard fails to form a government, the Labor-voting Mr Murphy fears he would be held partly responsible for the party's demise.
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