Submissions close Tuesday, 10 March 2026
Guide for Patients, Carers, Family and Community Members for preparing a submission to the NSW Legislative Council Inquiry into the management, maintenance and operational issues at Calvary Mater Hospital, Newcastle
What is the inquiry, and who can make a submission
The NSW Legislative Council established an inquiry into the management, maintenance and operational issues at Calvary Mater Hospital, Newcastle.
Any person or organisation can make a submission to this inquiry. Submissions do not have to be long documents, and a submission of 1 or 2 pages is perfectly acceptable.
Inquiries generally want to know how the issues they are investigating impact patients, carers, family members and the community.
Submissions must be received by the inquiry by 10 March 2026 and can be made on the inquiry’s WEBSITE.
HCNSW will make a general submission to the Inquiry as an organisation, saying that the Inquiry needs to listen to the voices of patients, carers and their families. We encourage you to make an individual submission if applicable to your experiences.
This inquiry is only interested in experiences with the Calvary Mater Hospital, Newcastle
You may want to talk about service experiences at other hospitals and health services, not Calvary Mater Hospital, Newcastle. This is important, but not what the inquiry is looking at. If you have concerns about the care you received from other hospitals and health services, then we recommend you contact the NSW Health Care Complaints Commission on 1800 043 159.
How to make a submission
Your submission should include:
1) Introductory Information
It is important to make it clear to the committee why your views are important and relevant to the inquiry.
For individuals and their family members
Include a brief statement in the first paragraph that you have personal experience of the Calvary Mater Hospital, as a patient, carer or family member.
For groups and organisations
The committee may not be aware of your organisation or group, so it is useful to provide some brief information about your organisation and who you represent. Include any details of services or support you provide to patients or the local community. Include a sentence as to why your group’s views are important to the inquiry.
Contact details
It is important to provide your name and contact details. For organisations, provide the details of a contact person. In most cases, people’s contact details will be removed from submissions before they are published.
Confidentiality
Submissions to parliamentary inquiries are usually published on the inquiry’s website.
If you do not want your submission to be publicly available, then you can ask that it remain confidential. To do this, you need to:
- include the word confidential clearly on the front of your submission, and provide a reason why you do not want your submission published
- make sure that your name and contact details are on a separate page and not in the main part of your submission.
Confidential submissions will only be read by members of the committee and the secretariat.
Committees will usually not publish submissions from individuals who request confidentiality. The committee does, however, have the authority to publish or not publish any submission. The committee secretary can provide you with more information about confidentiality.
2) Address the Terms of Reference
The Terms of Reference describe the subject of the inquiry and set what it can and cannot investigate. You need to ensure that your submission is relevant to them. Some people find it useful to structure their submission by responding to each item in the terms of reference. Others find it useful to write a story about their experience that covers as many terms of reference as possible.
You do not need to include something about every item in the terms of reference, only about those that are relevant to you.
Think about the most important problems and priorities at Calvary Mater Hospital that you would like to see addressed, and mention them in your submission.
You can find the Terms of Reference at the end of this article for download. In the Submissions Guide, also for download, you can find an explanation of what should be included in each point of the Terms of Reference. You do not have to address every item.
3) Witness
Inquiries take evidence from both written submissions and from people directly. This is called being a witness to the enquiry, and what you have to say when you are there is called your evidence to the inquiry.
If you would like to talk to the committee directly about your experiences and recommendations, then include a statement in your submission saying you would be happy to appear as a witness. Members of the public are usually able to attend most committee hearings (but only witnesses are allowed to speak and answer questions). If you would like to give evidence to the committee in private than you can ask to do so in your submission.
More information about public hearings and being a witness can be found on the Parliament of Australia’s website: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Attending_a_public_hearing
4) Suggestions and Recommendations
The committee will want to know what you think should be done to address the problem. Try to identify solutions or ways you think the issue could be dealt with better. If you have made a lot of recommendations in your submission, then you might want to include a list of them all in the summary.
5) Summary
If your submission is long and includes many recommendations, then it can be helpful to include a summary.
Adapted from A Quick Guide to Writing Submissions, from the NSW Legislative Council, and Making a Submission from the Parliament of Australia website: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Making_a_submission
