Dr LIM - 1999-02-23
As a private medical practitioner, I was essentially in competition with Territory Health Services for services to patients. In all my years of practice in the Territory, I always held the Northern Territory’s health services in high regard. I considered services delivered by THS to be of high standard, but is it a perfect health system? I ask the minister to confirm claims that the Territory has the perfect health system and does not need improvement.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I had hoped that the opposition might have taken a greater role in this given that outside this House they are continuing to be involved. But, when it comes to speaking to the people in the people’s House we get a very, very shoddy response from them.
I have some advice for the Leader of the Opposition and I can sum it up in 2 words. The first one is ‘get’ and the second one is ‘real’.
If the opposition is serious about debating this issue, they should stay with matters of fact.
One of the problems we have, and one that concerns staff, is that they hear a variety of rumours. The rumours are fed by people who they believe have some credibility and it has the result of causing some upset to people, particularly when you look at the calibre of the rumour.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: If you listen you’ll understand.
What we have is the Labor opposition running, over the last decade or so, a series of attacks on this government and saying that we should be doing something with the health system.
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: The government is quite proud of the record of having changed the whole system.
Mr Speaker, it’s a bit hard to ...
Mr SPEAKER: I agree it is very, very difficult when there are these long drawn-out interjections from the opposition. I would ask you, once again, to be short and sharp with interjections. I don’t mind interjections if they are reasonable, but if they are out of order I will be taking some action before too much longer.
Mr DUNHAM: If they listen, Mr Speaker, it might give them some capacity to talk to their constituents, many of whom are concerned about what’s happening. The reason they’re concerned is they are being fed a heap of fibs from a whole variety of areas.
The Territory has a proud record in change in its health services. Over the years we have put in initiatives in primary health and Aboriginal health. In the front end of health services we’ve moved from acute treatment services into primary and prevention services. We have paved the way in Australia with many of our initiatives. We have brought specialists to this place. We have introduced renal services.
We have taken up an initiative to train local Territorians to become doctors. Mr Speaker, you would be aware that it has been an immensely difficult thing for young secondary students from the Territory to enter the universities to study medicine in other places. We have not been well-served by the universities around Australia that turn out graduates. The reason for this is that often their catchment are people from the south-east corner of this nation, and are people who are not keen to come to what they see as a frontier area.
The Territory’s initiatives through the Flinders University is now seeing over 12 Territory students studying here. More importantly, the Flinders University puts these students through Alice Springs and other hospitals so that 50 or so students in each year are getting experience of the Territory and many of them are signalling they will come back. The Territory has not been standing still. We have been embracing change, and we have been looking at ways we can make the system better.
As the previous minister said in December last year, we have reached the end of the road as far as how we can radically modify our capacity and our acute settings. It is important that Territorians realise that what we are doing here is building on the proud record of acute services in the Top End and in the Centre. We have hospitals that have efficiencies that they should be proud of ...
Mr AH KIT: A point of order, Mr Speaker! As I understand it, on Thursday we will be discussing the hospital privatisation, and I understand that the minister will be contributing to that. His answer is nowhere near short or concise. He is making a ministerial statement.
Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The minister is entitled to respond to the question that he was asked. I would ask him, though, to move quickly.
Mr DUNHAM: I am pleased that the member for Arnhem is looking for concise answers, because if they go to their friends who are coming to them, and if they go to their unions, they should be very careful about painting the facts as they are. The sort of rumours that were trotted out, the sort of half truths that were trotted out, at the lunch time meetings yesterday only served to create a more emotional situation than is necessary. I would ask the opposition spokesman and the Leader of the Opposition to please continue to talk to people who are concerned, but please tell them the truth, because it makes it much easier, and it upsets them much less.
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, I had hoped that the opposition might have taken a greater role in this given that outside this House they are continuing to be involved. But, when it comes to speaking to the people in the people’s House we get a very, very shoddy response from them.
I have some advice for the Leader of the Opposition and I can sum it up in 2 words. The first one is ‘get’ and the second one is ‘real’.
If the opposition is serious about debating this issue, they should stay with matters of fact.
One of the problems we have, and one that concerns staff, is that they hear a variety of rumours. The rumours are fed by people who they believe have some credibility and it has the result of causing some upset to people, particularly when you look at the calibre of the rumour.
Ms Martin interjecting.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr DUNHAM: If you listen you’ll understand.
What we have is the Labor opposition running, over the last decade or so, a series of attacks on this government and saying that we should be doing something with the health system.
Members interjecting.
Mr DUNHAM: The government is quite proud of the record of having changed the whole system.
Mr Speaker, it’s a bit hard to ...
Mr SPEAKER: I agree it is very, very difficult when there are these long drawn-out interjections from the opposition. I would ask you, once again, to be short and sharp with interjections. I don’t mind interjections if they are reasonable, but if they are out of order I will be taking some action before too much longer.
Mr DUNHAM: If they listen, Mr Speaker, it might give them some capacity to talk to their constituents, many of whom are concerned about what’s happening. The reason they’re concerned is they are being fed a heap of fibs from a whole variety of areas.
The Territory has a proud record in change in its health services. Over the years we have put in initiatives in primary health and Aboriginal health. In the front end of health services we’ve moved from acute treatment services into primary and prevention services. We have paved the way in Australia with many of our initiatives. We have brought specialists to this place. We have introduced renal services.
We have taken up an initiative to train local Territorians to become doctors. Mr Speaker, you would be aware that it has been an immensely difficult thing for young secondary students from the Territory to enter the universities to study medicine in other places. We have not been well-served by the universities around Australia that turn out graduates. The reason for this is that often their catchment are people from the south-east corner of this nation, and are people who are not keen to come to what they see as a frontier area.
The Territory’s initiatives through the Flinders University is now seeing over 12 Territory students studying here. More importantly, the Flinders University puts these students through Alice Springs and other hospitals so that 50 or so students in each year are getting experience of the Territory and many of them are signalling they will come back. The Territory has not been standing still. We have been embracing change, and we have been looking at ways we can make the system better.
As the previous minister said in December last year, we have reached the end of the road as far as how we can radically modify our capacity and our acute settings. It is important that Territorians realise that what we are doing here is building on the proud record of acute services in the Top End and in the Centre. We have hospitals that have efficiencies that they should be proud of ...
Mr AH KIT: A point of order, Mr Speaker! As I understand it, on Thursday we will be discussing the hospital privatisation, and I understand that the minister will be contributing to that. His answer is nowhere near short or concise. He is making a ministerial statement.
Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The minister is entitled to respond to the question that he was asked. I would ask him, though, to move quickly.
Mr DUNHAM: I am pleased that the member for Arnhem is looking for concise answers, because if they go to their friends who are coming to them, and if they go to their unions, they should be very careful about painting the facts as they are. The sort of rumours that were trotted out, the sort of half truths that were trotted out, at the lunch time meetings yesterday only served to create a more emotional situation than is necessary. I would ask the opposition spokesman and the Leader of the Opposition to please continue to talk to people who are concerned, but please tell them the truth, because it makes it much easier, and it upsets them much less.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016