Ms CARTER - 2001-03-01
We have heard in this House over the course of these sittings a number of allegations and claims put forward by the Labor Party about health issues in the Northern Territory. Many of these allegations have also been repeated in the federal parliament by the Labor Party’s Warren Snowdon, with yet another allegation raised yesterday by Canberra’s representative in the Northern Territory, this time regarding staffing issues in the township of Maningrida. Can the minister advise honourable members about the veracity of these latest claims and, further, can he tell Territorians listening to this broadcast why Mr Snowdon continues to denigrate our home to southern interests?
ANSWER
It is indeed sad, Mr Speaker. This follows on a theme that was touched on by the Chief Minister when he answered the question about some of the distorted media releases that are in circulation. Some of them, in fact, have such nebulous sources that often it takes a while for us to factually rebut them. And that is indeed the case with a particular allegation that was made known to Warren Snowdon, late the year before last. That is how long, in fact, this has taken.
Members would recall that, with great theatrics, the member for Wanguri tabled a letter to Warren Snowdon written by a doctor that made a variety of allegations that bordered on being illegal and criminal. They were indeed very serious. They alleged that people had been given medical treatments entirely beyond their ken, and these treatments related in part to, for instance, a lady being sterilised without her knowledge. We viewed them as very serious, and notwithstanding that the honourable member, Warren Snowdon, had this allegation for some weeks, he did nothing about them and, indeed, I doubt whether even yet he has acted on them. So he has in his hand a letter alleging behaviour which is tantamount to criminal, and chooses to do nothing about it, other than to provide it to those opposite.
I had originally surmised that the member for Wanguri was merely following his leader’s lead in running spurious accusations up and leaving a mess behind in the hope that it took so long to disprove them that they would get currency. But I suspect it has been largely the federal member, and that is sad because the Territory only has one federal member in the House of Representatives, and he is most unrepresentative. He ran another diatribe last night that canvassed a variety of issues and many of them were way off the mark. I would specifically like to refer in this answer to the question of the interpreter service and a letter ...
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The minister has been on his feet for probably 10 minutes now. This is Question Time ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! You are wrong in saying that he has been on his feet for more than 10 minutes, but I would ask the minister to complete his answer as quickly as is possible.
Mr DUNHAM: I shall, but it is important that it goes on the record because it is a fairly aged matter.
The allegation had been made in a letter to Warren Snowdon in November last year that there were several examples that pointed to the need for an Aboriginal interpreter service. The letters were, as I said, tabled with great flourish in this House by the shadow health spokesperson. When I had the opportunity to read the letters that very day, I wrote to the Chairman of the Medical Registration Board, knowing that these issues required sensitive investigation because of the need-to-know concept and medical confidentiality.
It is only in the last few months, and certainly after the last sittings of parliament, that I received an answer from Dr David Cox, the Chairman of the Medical Registration Board. I made an undertaking that I would investigate this matter and that I would report back to parliament, and I do so now. I will table this letter, but essentially it says:
I refer to your letter of 24 November regarding Dr Anthony Page’s letter to Mr Warren Snowdon, specifically regarding the board’s advice on specific examples cited in examples 1 and 2 of Dr Page’s letter. The board has investigated these complaints to the best of its ability. As you are aware the delay in completing the investigation was due to the remote location of the only patient able to be identified from the material. The board obtained consent from the Aboriginal woman concerned to examine her medical records. As a result of the examination of her records, the board is of the opinion that the allegations in example 1 cannot be sustained.
The case cited in example 2 is of some considerable age. and Dr Page has advised the board that this example has been gleaned from anecdotal information he had heard. Further, no specific patient was able to be identified or any inappropriate conduct attributed to any doctor.
So we can’t find the case; we can’t find the patient. I do apologise on behalf of this Parliament to those people thus defamed, and there are many of them, because while it is easy to kick off a rumour such as this, as the Chief Minister pointed out, it often takes some casualties along the way. This particular rumour was fairly vicious. Not only did it denigrate the Royal Darwin Hospital ...
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Speaker!
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. I have already ruled on that note.
Mr DUNHAM: I would have thought that the opposition would have wanted to know all the data on this, given that they so readily ran this as a censure campaign, and I would have thought that more information, more facts would be very vital for them, given that they have blundered so terribly here.
So in talking about those people who are hurt by this, you are talking about the Royal Darwin Hospital. And the great preponderance of its clientele, as we know, are Aboriginal people who come from remote centres, and the doctors were pilloried in general.
The group that I most feel sympathy for is the good people that set up the Aboriginal Interpreter Service. I was present at the launch of that service. There was great happiness because people knew how long it had taken. They knew that the government had trialed options, and they knew that setting up the service was a demonstration of government’s bona fides, and they knew it had been preceded by good intellectual policy that was based on what was practical and right for the Territory. The headline that ran out of that cited bungles. So here we are on 15 December last year with the media still reporting on the ‘sterilisation bungle that prompted a new interpreter service at Royal Darwin Hospital’.
I would leave it for those who need some verification of the distress that it caused the Aboriginal people involved in that service. My colleague, the minister for DCIS, was there at the time and it was a happy occasion. That was rendered a sorry one, because this particular rumour had lingered on and, as it gathered momentum, it captured up a lot of casualties in its wake.
I call on the person - it’s a misnomer I guess - proclaiming to be the member for the Northern Territory in the House of Representatives to apologise to those people he has thus defamed . I call on the opposition to be a little more careful how they handle urban myths, and they can make some short investigatory excursions before they embark on the great trip, and one of them could well be to make some phone calls or, as I did, refer it to august bodies who have been set up by this government to investigate matters such as this.
Mr SPEAKER: Can I just say before we go on with Question Time that it is true we have had only four questions in something like 30 minutes, and whilst I ruled against a point of order in that particular answer because I think the content was important, the answers to questions generally are too long. I would like to think that we could get more than the number of questions that we are currently getting into Question Time.
ANSWER
It is indeed sad, Mr Speaker. This follows on a theme that was touched on by the Chief Minister when he answered the question about some of the distorted media releases that are in circulation. Some of them, in fact, have such nebulous sources that often it takes a while for us to factually rebut them. And that is indeed the case with a particular allegation that was made known to Warren Snowdon, late the year before last. That is how long, in fact, this has taken.
Members would recall that, with great theatrics, the member for Wanguri tabled a letter to Warren Snowdon written by a doctor that made a variety of allegations that bordered on being illegal and criminal. They were indeed very serious. They alleged that people had been given medical treatments entirely beyond their ken, and these treatments related in part to, for instance, a lady being sterilised without her knowledge. We viewed them as very serious, and notwithstanding that the honourable member, Warren Snowdon, had this allegation for some weeks, he did nothing about them and, indeed, I doubt whether even yet he has acted on them. So he has in his hand a letter alleging behaviour which is tantamount to criminal, and chooses to do nothing about it, other than to provide it to those opposite.
I had originally surmised that the member for Wanguri was merely following his leader’s lead in running spurious accusations up and leaving a mess behind in the hope that it took so long to disprove them that they would get currency. But I suspect it has been largely the federal member, and that is sad because the Territory only has one federal member in the House of Representatives, and he is most unrepresentative. He ran another diatribe last night that canvassed a variety of issues and many of them were way off the mark. I would specifically like to refer in this answer to the question of the interpreter service and a letter ...
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Speaker! The minister has been on his feet for probably 10 minutes now. This is Question Time ...
Mr SPEAKER: Order! You are wrong in saying that he has been on his feet for more than 10 minutes, but I would ask the minister to complete his answer as quickly as is possible.
Mr DUNHAM: I shall, but it is important that it goes on the record because it is a fairly aged matter.
The allegation had been made in a letter to Warren Snowdon in November last year that there were several examples that pointed to the need for an Aboriginal interpreter service. The letters were, as I said, tabled with great flourish in this House by the shadow health spokesperson. When I had the opportunity to read the letters that very day, I wrote to the Chairman of the Medical Registration Board, knowing that these issues required sensitive investigation because of the need-to-know concept and medical confidentiality.
It is only in the last few months, and certainly after the last sittings of parliament, that I received an answer from Dr David Cox, the Chairman of the Medical Registration Board. I made an undertaking that I would investigate this matter and that I would report back to parliament, and I do so now. I will table this letter, but essentially it says:
I refer to your letter of 24 November regarding Dr Anthony Page’s letter to Mr Warren Snowdon, specifically regarding the board’s advice on specific examples cited in examples 1 and 2 of Dr Page’s letter. The board has investigated these complaints to the best of its ability. As you are aware the delay in completing the investigation was due to the remote location of the only patient able to be identified from the material. The board obtained consent from the Aboriginal woman concerned to examine her medical records. As a result of the examination of her records, the board is of the opinion that the allegations in example 1 cannot be sustained.
The case cited in example 2 is of some considerable age. and Dr Page has advised the board that this example has been gleaned from anecdotal information he had heard. Further, no specific patient was able to be identified or any inappropriate conduct attributed to any doctor.
So we can’t find the case; we can’t find the patient. I do apologise on behalf of this Parliament to those people thus defamed, and there are many of them, because while it is easy to kick off a rumour such as this, as the Chief Minister pointed out, it often takes some casualties along the way. This particular rumour was fairly vicious. Not only did it denigrate the Royal Darwin Hospital ...
Dr TOYNE: A point of order, Mr Speaker!
Mr SPEAKER: Order! There is no point of order. I have already ruled on that note.
Mr DUNHAM: I would have thought that the opposition would have wanted to know all the data on this, given that they so readily ran this as a censure campaign, and I would have thought that more information, more facts would be very vital for them, given that they have blundered so terribly here.
So in talking about those people who are hurt by this, you are talking about the Royal Darwin Hospital. And the great preponderance of its clientele, as we know, are Aboriginal people who come from remote centres, and the doctors were pilloried in general.
The group that I most feel sympathy for is the good people that set up the Aboriginal Interpreter Service. I was present at the launch of that service. There was great happiness because people knew how long it had taken. They knew that the government had trialed options, and they knew that setting up the service was a demonstration of government’s bona fides, and they knew it had been preceded by good intellectual policy that was based on what was practical and right for the Territory. The headline that ran out of that cited bungles. So here we are on 15 December last year with the media still reporting on the ‘sterilisation bungle that prompted a new interpreter service at Royal Darwin Hospital’.
I would leave it for those who need some verification of the distress that it caused the Aboriginal people involved in that service. My colleague, the minister for DCIS, was there at the time and it was a happy occasion. That was rendered a sorry one, because this particular rumour had lingered on and, as it gathered momentum, it captured up a lot of casualties in its wake.
I call on the person - it’s a misnomer I guess - proclaiming to be the member for the Northern Territory in the House of Representatives to apologise to those people he has thus defamed . I call on the opposition to be a little more careful how they handle urban myths, and they can make some short investigatory excursions before they embark on the great trip, and one of them could well be to make some phone calls or, as I did, refer it to august bodies who have been set up by this government to investigate matters such as this.
Mr SPEAKER: Can I just say before we go on with Question Time that it is true we have had only four questions in something like 30 minutes, and whilst I ruled against a point of order in that particular answer because I think the content was important, the answers to questions generally are too long. I would like to think that we could get more than the number of questions that we are currently getting into Question Time.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016