Mr HENDERSON - 2000-02-29
An NT News article on 22 December last year stated: ‘Waiting time possible to ease’. The article stated that a $17 000 donation from Woolworths had allowed the hospital to purchase new equipment. Minister, do you consider that you have discharged your duties as Health Minister adequately when we have to rely on a corporate donation of $17 000 for new electronic blood pressure and vital signs monitors, a machine allowing rapid diagnosis of unborn babies, and other equipment at the A & E department at Royal Darwin Hospital? How do you justify to Territorians spending $2m to rebuild the Town Hall ruins when you can’t find the money for basic equipment at Royal Darwin Hospital?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I had thought that the shadow health member was standing to apologise because the very same media that he’s quoting, pre-Christmas, had a smattering of quotes from him denigrating our hospital, and they also made various predictions about the calamities that would occur there over the Christmas period.
Now, in the cold, hard light of day and with the benefit of hindsight, I thought he would have been able to stand before this parliament and make an apology, because he put a lack of confidence into the wider community about the hospital, particularly for expectant mums. He is well and truly on the record talking about our incapacity to deal with neonatal babies during that period, and talked about the necessity to send them south. This is all nonsense.
We can now look behind and we can see that, along with his colleague in arms, the sort of Tonto of the member for Wanguri, Mr Nuvenhoven, they ran this little tag team thing about how we were losing nurses. Not true. How we found it difficult to replace them. Not true. How we would have to send mums South because we couldn’t treat them. Not true. How the Alice Springs Hospital was in dire circumstances and wouldn’t be able to treat paediatric patients. Not true. So, I am very glad that he has brought the attention of this House to the media reports pre Christmas. I would have thought that he would have prefaced his question with an apology to those people who were misled by believing him.
It was a sort of Labor ‘henny-penny’ policy where they run around like chooks with no heads and say the ‘sky is falling in, the sky is falling in’, and then conveniently forget that they ever drew these little extrapolations.
The nub of his question goes to this terrible offensive thing to the Labor Party, and that’s private enterprise. They have got a really big problem with anybody dispensing health services other than the government. Now they have got this idea that it’s totally the government’s business and nobody else should butt in and if they do, somehow it is an indicator the system has some sort of problem. Well the news is 30% of Australia’s health effort was provided from the non-government sector. We do not find this a problem. We have encouraged the non-government sector to participate in non-services. We have encouraged health providers to come and have a look at this place and perhaps in some sort of partnership with the Northern Territory government dispense services, and we do not have a problem with that. We think it is essentially a good idea that there are some corporate citizens out there who are great contributors to the Royal Darwin Hospital. It is a hospital – and I am sure my colleague, the member for Casuarina, will attest to the prowess of that hospital in dealing with the crisis that arose over Christmas.
But we would encourage the private sector to continue to provide endowments to the hospital. I am quite happy to put on record that the Variety Club provide great services. I am quite happy to thank Woolworths and other corporations who make contributions to our hospital, and I think that that is probably part of their good community attitude and community spirit, and I thank them for it, because unlike those opposite, they have confidence in this hospital, and they confidently go to their shareholders and boards and others and talk about how they are happy to make a contribution to the health effort in the Territory.
It is a pity that those opposite do not take a leaf from this book and start to build the hospital up. Only last week the member for Wanguri stood before the Senate Committee and yet again denigrated the Royal Darwin Hospital. It will appear in Hansard because this evidence is taped and recorded in Hansard.
Ms Martin: You can’t stand in here and lie, ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order. The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw that remark.
Ms MARTIN: I withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I can understand she would use the word ‘lie’ because basically that is what we have been talking about here earlier in terms of Labor’s various allegations.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The minister can not infer that and should withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. The ...
Mr Henderson: Withdraw it!
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the fact that ...
Mr Henderson: Thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: ... the Leader of the Opposition ...
Ms Martin: Just withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the fact that she unequivocally lied.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There should be no play on words there. The minister is either withdrawing or not. Please withdraw, thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: We will revisit the Senate inquiries at some later time, but only last week the member for Wanguri was standing in front of the Senate Committee denigrating the Royal Darwin Hospital, talking about the Accident and Emergency Department there, using some sort of taste thing rather than factual thing from the top of his head and, in fact, presenting the hospital as something that it is not. I would ask those opposite to come up with some policies. It is really interesting in my portfolio area to see the effort in the non-government sector, particularly worthy organisations like St Vincent de Paul, and it’s really interesting to see the opposition now denigrating the worthy efforts of the non-government sector, talking about removing them from Stuart Park where they have been for some decades providing a very good service and the question is that they’ve got to grapple with is if that worthy organisation is in some way responsible for anti-social behaviour, where would Labor put it. And in the case of ...
Mrs HICKEY: A point of order, Mr Speaker!
Mr SPEAKER: Order! What is your point of order?
Mrs HICKEY: It wasn’t the topic of the question, Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. I think that the minister, as I’ve indicated before, has some scope in answering the question, but I would ask the minister to complete the answer as quickly as possible.
Mr DUNHAM: I will complete, Mr Speaker, with just this one plea to Labor: Could they please tell us their policies, because in the absence of policies we really don’t know whether this is the Royal Darwin Hospital or the Society of St Vincent de Paul.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I had thought that the shadow health member was standing to apologise because the very same media that he’s quoting, pre-Christmas, had a smattering of quotes from him denigrating our hospital, and they also made various predictions about the calamities that would occur there over the Christmas period.
Now, in the cold, hard light of day and with the benefit of hindsight, I thought he would have been able to stand before this parliament and make an apology, because he put a lack of confidence into the wider community about the hospital, particularly for expectant mums. He is well and truly on the record talking about our incapacity to deal with neonatal babies during that period, and talked about the necessity to send them south. This is all nonsense.
We can now look behind and we can see that, along with his colleague in arms, the sort of Tonto of the member for Wanguri, Mr Nuvenhoven, they ran this little tag team thing about how we were losing nurses. Not true. How we found it difficult to replace them. Not true. How we would have to send mums South because we couldn’t treat them. Not true. How the Alice Springs Hospital was in dire circumstances and wouldn’t be able to treat paediatric patients. Not true. So, I am very glad that he has brought the attention of this House to the media reports pre Christmas. I would have thought that he would have prefaced his question with an apology to those people who were misled by believing him.
It was a sort of Labor ‘henny-penny’ policy where they run around like chooks with no heads and say the ‘sky is falling in, the sky is falling in’, and then conveniently forget that they ever drew these little extrapolations.
The nub of his question goes to this terrible offensive thing to the Labor Party, and that’s private enterprise. They have got a really big problem with anybody dispensing health services other than the government. Now they have got this idea that it’s totally the government’s business and nobody else should butt in and if they do, somehow it is an indicator the system has some sort of problem. Well the news is 30% of Australia’s health effort was provided from the non-government sector. We do not find this a problem. We have encouraged the non-government sector to participate in non-services. We have encouraged health providers to come and have a look at this place and perhaps in some sort of partnership with the Northern Territory government dispense services, and we do not have a problem with that. We think it is essentially a good idea that there are some corporate citizens out there who are great contributors to the Royal Darwin Hospital. It is a hospital – and I am sure my colleague, the member for Casuarina, will attest to the prowess of that hospital in dealing with the crisis that arose over Christmas.
But we would encourage the private sector to continue to provide endowments to the hospital. I am quite happy to put on record that the Variety Club provide great services. I am quite happy to thank Woolworths and other corporations who make contributions to our hospital, and I think that that is probably part of their good community attitude and community spirit, and I thank them for it, because unlike those opposite, they have confidence in this hospital, and they confidently go to their shareholders and boards and others and talk about how they are happy to make a contribution to the health effort in the Territory.
It is a pity that those opposite do not take a leaf from this book and start to build the hospital up. Only last week the member for Wanguri stood before the Senate Committee and yet again denigrated the Royal Darwin Hospital. It will appear in Hansard because this evidence is taped and recorded in Hansard.
Ms Martin: You can’t stand in here and lie, ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order. The Leader of the Opposition will withdraw that remark.
Ms MARTIN: I withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I can understand she would use the word ‘lie’ because basically that is what we have been talking about here earlier in terms of Labor’s various allegations.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! The minister can not infer that and should withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: Okay. The ...
Mr Henderson: Withdraw it!
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the fact that ...
Mr Henderson: Thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: ... the Leader of the Opposition ...
Ms Martin: Just withdraw.
Mr DUNHAM: I withdraw the fact that she unequivocally lied.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There should be no play on words there. The minister is either withdrawing or not. Please withdraw, thank you.
Mr DUNHAM: We will revisit the Senate inquiries at some later time, but only last week the member for Wanguri was standing in front of the Senate Committee denigrating the Royal Darwin Hospital, talking about the Accident and Emergency Department there, using some sort of taste thing rather than factual thing from the top of his head and, in fact, presenting the hospital as something that it is not. I would ask those opposite to come up with some policies. It is really interesting in my portfolio area to see the effort in the non-government sector, particularly worthy organisations like St Vincent de Paul, and it’s really interesting to see the opposition now denigrating the worthy efforts of the non-government sector, talking about removing them from Stuart Park where they have been for some decades providing a very good service and the question is that they’ve got to grapple with is if that worthy organisation is in some way responsible for anti-social behaviour, where would Labor put it. And in the case of ...
Mrs HICKEY: A point of order, Mr Speaker!
Mr SPEAKER: Order! What is your point of order?
Mrs HICKEY: It wasn’t the topic of the question, Mr Speaker.
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. I think that the minister, as I’ve indicated before, has some scope in answering the question, but I would ask the minister to complete the answer as quickly as possible.
Mr DUNHAM: I will complete, Mr Speaker, with just this one plea to Labor: Could they please tell us their policies, because in the absence of policies we really don’t know whether this is the Royal Darwin Hospital or the Society of St Vincent de Paul.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016