Dr LIM - 2000-05-17
Yesterday’s handing down of the budget by the Treasurer seemed to have a major emphasis on spending in health. This morning, on the ABC radio, I was surprised to hear Norman Fry from the Northern Land Council describe the Northern Territory government’s budget on Aboriginal health and essential services as ‘shameful’. I heard that the AMA is also denigrating the budget. This government has always had an enviable record in Aboriginal health spending. Can the minister explain why there has been this reaction from the NLC?
ANSWER
There are probably a couple of reasons, Mr Speaker. The most obvious one is that there is a little shot of adrenaline as people think an election is approaching, and the travelling partners of those opposite are starting to muster. They have been told that, as soon as we make an announcement, jump in and say something terrible, it doesn’t matter what it is.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order, the Leader of the Opposition!
Mr DUNHAM: It does not really matter whether you are right or wrong, just make sure you get your grab. We know from the documents that have been tabled in this place about the Labor Party that they will be mustering both the land councils and the unions to run a campaign of this type.
The Treasurer spoke yesterday for just short of an hour. There are people making commentary on the radio this morning about all sorts of things that will be discussed in this parliament over several hours today, so they are talking about detail they don’t know anything about. They are talking about a process they know nothing about.
Mr Henderson: So it is not in the budget?
Mr DUNHAM: It is in the budget. The difficulty they have is that they are talking from a point of ignorance, and the big issue is that they are misleading the public on the radio. We can understand it, I suppose, when we are talking about the NLC and Norman Fry who is on the record as saying he is hostile to most things relating to the government. But it is terrible when the shadow health minister also joins in this little debate. He runs from the only paper that he has ever seen in this parliament, which is the one that was tabled yesterday, without the capacity to compare with previous budgets. It is very important that people understand the process and I am happy to be able to put on record the initiatives in terms of health.
The comparison between last year’s budget and this year’s budget has to be on the base. If you compare it on the base, there was some discussion this morning from my shadow talking about a loss of $4m. That is a foolhardy comparison because it is comparing apples with lychees. I can give you 3 examples of one-off costs that we won’t have to face this year. An obvious one is East Timor where we spent over $2m, $2.15m. A one-off program for another $3.5m, and an IT program, one-off, worth $3m.
To save him doing the calculation in his head because I know his mental arithmetic is not real flash, there is $9m. There’s a $9m increase right there. If he uses his own figures alone, on those 3 items we are up $5m. On his own stupid arithmetic.
The fact is that we must compare apples with apples; we must compare the base budget of last year with the base budge of this year. I can inform the House that those two comparisons are up $8m from $424m to $432m, a figure I am very proud of.
The Northern Land Council made comments this morning. They claim to be the peak body for Aboriginal people and the quote of Norman Fry was that the budget does nothing to address the desperate needs in indigenous health and education.
Mr Toyne: Well he is right there.
Mr DUNHAM: He’s right there, is he?
He went on to say on radio this morning that it was such a pathetic number, $3m, in a $1bn budget. For starters, he can’t read the budget because what he’s talking about is the $3m that was announced by the Minister for Aboriginal Development which is new money for essential services and, while it has a health link, if we are to talk about health money, we should look at the health budget. We should look at my budget. I am quite happy to make those benchmarks, not just in terms of last year and this year, but in terms of what the Northern Territory government does and other states do. I am happy to read those into parliament.
The figures we spend on our indigenous health services are from an independent report that has been published recently. I hope that the Leader of the Opposition’s economic spokesman has a copy of it – otherwise I can provide him with one – and in every category the Northern Territory leaves the rest of the nation trailing in its wake. We are talking about Aboriginal health and the report on government services for last year. The Australian average is 1.173, that is nearly $1200; New South Wales about $1300; Victoria $1300; Queensland $1500; Western Australia – another conservative government - $2100; South Australia $1200; ACT $600; Northern Territory $3200.
We are quite happy to show that our efforts in addressing Aboriginal ill health compare favourably with any other jurisdiction, including Labor jurisdictions. Aboriginal people make up about a quarter of our population and unfortunately they have to access some half of the Territory health budget. The figures used by people like Norman Fry denigrate the good work this government has done to address ill health among its Aboriginal population and I condemn him for joining in the charade of Labor’s early campaign.
ANSWER
There are probably a couple of reasons, Mr Speaker. The most obvious one is that there is a little shot of adrenaline as people think an election is approaching, and the travelling partners of those opposite are starting to muster. They have been told that, as soon as we make an announcement, jump in and say something terrible, it doesn’t matter what it is.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order, the Leader of the Opposition!
Mr DUNHAM: It does not really matter whether you are right or wrong, just make sure you get your grab. We know from the documents that have been tabled in this place about the Labor Party that they will be mustering both the land councils and the unions to run a campaign of this type.
The Treasurer spoke yesterday for just short of an hour. There are people making commentary on the radio this morning about all sorts of things that will be discussed in this parliament over several hours today, so they are talking about detail they don’t know anything about. They are talking about a process they know nothing about.
Mr Henderson: So it is not in the budget?
Mr DUNHAM: It is in the budget. The difficulty they have is that they are talking from a point of ignorance, and the big issue is that they are misleading the public on the radio. We can understand it, I suppose, when we are talking about the NLC and Norman Fry who is on the record as saying he is hostile to most things relating to the government. But it is terrible when the shadow health minister also joins in this little debate. He runs from the only paper that he has ever seen in this parliament, which is the one that was tabled yesterday, without the capacity to compare with previous budgets. It is very important that people understand the process and I am happy to be able to put on record the initiatives in terms of health.
The comparison between last year’s budget and this year’s budget has to be on the base. If you compare it on the base, there was some discussion this morning from my shadow talking about a loss of $4m. That is a foolhardy comparison because it is comparing apples with lychees. I can give you 3 examples of one-off costs that we won’t have to face this year. An obvious one is East Timor where we spent over $2m, $2.15m. A one-off program for another $3.5m, and an IT program, one-off, worth $3m.
To save him doing the calculation in his head because I know his mental arithmetic is not real flash, there is $9m. There’s a $9m increase right there. If he uses his own figures alone, on those 3 items we are up $5m. On his own stupid arithmetic.
The fact is that we must compare apples with apples; we must compare the base budget of last year with the base budge of this year. I can inform the House that those two comparisons are up $8m from $424m to $432m, a figure I am very proud of.
The Northern Land Council made comments this morning. They claim to be the peak body for Aboriginal people and the quote of Norman Fry was that the budget does nothing to address the desperate needs in indigenous health and education.
Mr Toyne: Well he is right there.
Mr DUNHAM: He’s right there, is he?
He went on to say on radio this morning that it was such a pathetic number, $3m, in a $1bn budget. For starters, he can’t read the budget because what he’s talking about is the $3m that was announced by the Minister for Aboriginal Development which is new money for essential services and, while it has a health link, if we are to talk about health money, we should look at the health budget. We should look at my budget. I am quite happy to make those benchmarks, not just in terms of last year and this year, but in terms of what the Northern Territory government does and other states do. I am happy to read those into parliament.
The figures we spend on our indigenous health services are from an independent report that has been published recently. I hope that the Leader of the Opposition’s economic spokesman has a copy of it – otherwise I can provide him with one – and in every category the Northern Territory leaves the rest of the nation trailing in its wake. We are talking about Aboriginal health and the report on government services for last year. The Australian average is 1.173, that is nearly $1200; New South Wales about $1300; Victoria $1300; Queensland $1500; Western Australia – another conservative government - $2100; South Australia $1200; ACT $600; Northern Territory $3200.
We are quite happy to show that our efforts in addressing Aboriginal ill health compare favourably with any other jurisdiction, including Labor jurisdictions. Aboriginal people make up about a quarter of our population and unfortunately they have to access some half of the Territory health budget. The figures used by people like Norman Fry denigrate the good work this government has done to address ill health among its Aboriginal population and I condemn him for joining in the charade of Labor’s early campaign.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016