Mr BELL - 1995-02-21
Over the last 3 weeks, we have seen a series of reports that point to a disgraceful state of health, particularly for Aboriginal Territorians. These reports show that the health status of Aboriginal people has actually gone backwards in the years since self-government. As recently as yesterday, a report was released indicating that Aboriginal children in the Territory, particularly in central Australia and in my electorate, contracted pneumonia at the highest rate in the world. Another report shows our hospital waiting lists are far too long. I remind the minister that these are the people for whom the Chief Minister's concentration on the issue of euthanasia is simply an obscenity. Basically, they do not live long enough for it ever to be an issue. When will the minister accept some responsibility and do something to arrest the declining health standards among these Territorians?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, whilst we did not hear from the member for MacDonnell from the conclusion of the November/December sittings until his return to the Territory from holidays yesterday, I have been here working on these matters. One of the most important of the reports to which he refers is the morbidity and mortality report, prepared by Dr Aileen Plant, John Condon, and Gypsy Durling, covering the period 1979 to 1991. In itself, the report sets the Territory aside from the rest of Australia in terms of the type of information, its reliability and the factual information that it contains. It provides us with the best information in the nation in respect of the problems relating to Aboriginal health.
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Unfortunately, the member's broad-ranging comments, which extended even to a private member's bill relating to euthanasia, indicate already that he intends to approach his shadow portfolio responsibilities for health and community services on the basis of emotion rather than fact and what can be achieved. That is most unfortunate for the Northern Territory, but nonetheless it is the course that apparently he intends to plot. It seems to me that the honourable member should be recognising also the advantages, the pluses and the advances that we have made in respect of Aboriginal health and they too ...
Mrs Hickey: It has gone backwards.
Mr REED: ... have been highlighted in this report. However, the unfortunate thing about the opposition is that - and the previous health spokesperson, the member for Barkly was the same - the member for MacDonnell intends to take an approach of conveniently overlooking the advances that we have made in respect of Aboriginal health. I do not argue for a moment ...
Mr Bailey: They die of something else before ...
Mr REED: It is a pity that the member for Wanguri has insufficient interest to sit and listen to the answer to the question asked by his colleague. It clearly illustrates a lack of interest, at least on his part, and puts in question the integrity of members opposite in relation to this matter.
There are some very serious problems that must be addressed in relation to Aboriginal health. However, some advances have been made and this report, among others, illustrates what those advances are. This report, among others, tells us where we should be going, the ground on which we should be building and the successes on which we should be building to further advance the health of Aboriginal people. There are other reports that might do ...
Mr Bailey: Tell us what all of these advances are. Tell us what the advances are. Put on record where you see that major advances have been made in relation to Aboriginal health.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, there are other documents that might assist members opposite and I will take the opportunity to table one.
Mr Speaker, I table The Best of Both Worlds: Aboriginal Health Then and Now by Dr John Hargrave who, for 37 years, has been in the business of treating Aboriginal people.
I will also provide a copy for the member for MacDonnell in the hope that he will read it because it provides an alternative view to his in relation to the problems that beset us with Aboriginal health and some of the issues that have to be addressed in overcoming those problems. They are matters that I have alluded to previously, and I will not revisit them today. However, our vaccination programs in the Northern Territory have achieved far in excess of the national standard and 95% of children under 5 years of age in remote areas are vaccinated in the Northern Territory. That is recognised as a significant achievement in the prevention of disease, particularly of course in the treatment of Aboriginal people.
Page 420
In relation to men's health and access to hospital services since self-government, which the member for MacDonnell raised, inferring that the Territory government has been inadequate in addressing these issues, access to hospital for Aboriginal people has increased significantly since self-government. The opposition often raises the matter of expenditure. It may interest them to learn, particularly in the context of what the federal government has been arguing about over the last couple of weeks, that the ATSIC funding currently is $55m. The federal Minister for Human Services and Health, the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and the Deputy Prime Minister have been arguing over what, in terms of addressing Aboriginal health issues, is effectively ice-cream money. They are arguing over $55m.
In 1989-90, this government spent $94.8m on Aboriginal health; in 1990-91, it spent $112.6m; in 1992-93, it spent $127.6m; in 1993-94, it spent $139.7m; and, in 1994-95, it spent $159.6m. In the Northern Territory this financial year, we are spending $159.6m on the provision of health and community services to Aboriginal Territorians. On the other hand, over the past 2 or 3 weeks, the federal government has been passionately debating whether to spend $55m nationally and how and which department is to be responsible for it. The Territory will receive about $10m of that if we are lucky.
If members opposite want someone to get the priorities right, I suggest they talk to their federal colleagues. I understand their concerns because it is a major issue and it has to be addressed nationally. I suspect the Minister for Human Services and Health, Hon Carmen Lawrence, would have a very acute knowledge of what the problems are because, for a few years, she was Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia and, of course, she was also Premier of that state. Hopefully, she would be aware of the problems on the ground. I hope she comes to the realisation that the people to whom she has been speaking recently do not represent the people whom the member for MacDonnell represents.
While he was in Melbourne, the member may have watched the news broadcasts of the debates between the federal ministers in relation to the expenditure of the $55m and realised that all of those people represent urban-based health services. A traditional Aboriginal in Katherine said to me last week that they are whiter than I am. He and many other traditional Aboriginal people believe that these people have very little knowledge of the issues in remote Aboriginal communities and how they can best be addressed.
I will be taking up these issues with the Minister for Human Services and Health on Friday in Perth. I will be absent from the Assembly on Thursday afternoon because I will be travelling to Perth to meet with the federal minister to discuss these issues and how we can best address them. I believe the answers lie in closer cooperation between the states, ATSIC and the Commonwealth government on how much money is spent and how it is spent.
In conclusion, let me say that, in the 1994 election campaign, the Country Liberal Party issued a 13-point policy on what it would do to improve Aboriginal health in this parliamentary term. Honourable members opposite will recall that election because it is the campaign that has gone down in history as the one in which the ALP abandoned the interests of Aboriginal people. I have lost the postage stamp on which the ALP's policies were written. Nobody heard any ALP policies on Aboriginal health or the interests of Aboriginal people. The ALP abandoned Aboriginal people in the last election because it did not think they were politically
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popular. The CLP issued a 13-point policy that clearly defined our position and we have backed that with $159.6m-worth of expenditure this financial year. The member for MacDonnell needs to realise precisely what is being done by the Territory to enable him to be better informed and hopefully more factual with his responses as the opposition health spokesman.
Page 423
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, whilst we did not hear from the member for MacDonnell from the conclusion of the November/December sittings until his return to the Territory from holidays yesterday, I have been here working on these matters. One of the most important of the reports to which he refers is the morbidity and mortality report, prepared by Dr Aileen Plant, John Condon, and Gypsy Durling, covering the period 1979 to 1991. In itself, the report sets the Territory aside from the rest of Australia in terms of the type of information, its reliability and the factual information that it contains. It provides us with the best information in the nation in respect of the problems relating to Aboriginal health.
Page 419
Unfortunately, the member's broad-ranging comments, which extended even to a private member's bill relating to euthanasia, indicate already that he intends to approach his shadow portfolio responsibilities for health and community services on the basis of emotion rather than fact and what can be achieved. That is most unfortunate for the Northern Territory, but nonetheless it is the course that apparently he intends to plot. It seems to me that the honourable member should be recognising also the advantages, the pluses and the advances that we have made in respect of Aboriginal health and they too ...
Mrs Hickey: It has gone backwards.
Mr REED: ... have been highlighted in this report. However, the unfortunate thing about the opposition is that - and the previous health spokesperson, the member for Barkly was the same - the member for MacDonnell intends to take an approach of conveniently overlooking the advances that we have made in respect of Aboriginal health. I do not argue for a moment ...
Mr Bailey: They die of something else before ...
Mr REED: It is a pity that the member for Wanguri has insufficient interest to sit and listen to the answer to the question asked by his colleague. It clearly illustrates a lack of interest, at least on his part, and puts in question the integrity of members opposite in relation to this matter.
There are some very serious problems that must be addressed in relation to Aboriginal health. However, some advances have been made and this report, among others, illustrates what those advances are. This report, among others, tells us where we should be going, the ground on which we should be building and the successes on which we should be building to further advance the health of Aboriginal people. There are other reports that might do ...
Mr Bailey: Tell us what all of these advances are. Tell us what the advances are. Put on record where you see that major advances have been made in relation to Aboriginal health.
Mr SPEAKER: Order!
Mr REED: Mr Speaker, there are other documents that might assist members opposite and I will take the opportunity to table one.
Mr Speaker, I table The Best of Both Worlds: Aboriginal Health Then and Now by Dr John Hargrave who, for 37 years, has been in the business of treating Aboriginal people.
I will also provide a copy for the member for MacDonnell in the hope that he will read it because it provides an alternative view to his in relation to the problems that beset us with Aboriginal health and some of the issues that have to be addressed in overcoming those problems. They are matters that I have alluded to previously, and I will not revisit them today. However, our vaccination programs in the Northern Territory have achieved far in excess of the national standard and 95% of children under 5 years of age in remote areas are vaccinated in the Northern Territory. That is recognised as a significant achievement in the prevention of disease, particularly of course in the treatment of Aboriginal people.
Page 420
In relation to men's health and access to hospital services since self-government, which the member for MacDonnell raised, inferring that the Territory government has been inadequate in addressing these issues, access to hospital for Aboriginal people has increased significantly since self-government. The opposition often raises the matter of expenditure. It may interest them to learn, particularly in the context of what the federal government has been arguing about over the last couple of weeks, that the ATSIC funding currently is $55m. The federal Minister for Human Services and Health, the Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs and the Deputy Prime Minister have been arguing over what, in terms of addressing Aboriginal health issues, is effectively ice-cream money. They are arguing over $55m.
In 1989-90, this government spent $94.8m on Aboriginal health; in 1990-91, it spent $112.6m; in 1992-93, it spent $127.6m; in 1993-94, it spent $139.7m; and, in 1994-95, it spent $159.6m. In the Northern Territory this financial year, we are spending $159.6m on the provision of health and community services to Aboriginal Territorians. On the other hand, over the past 2 or 3 weeks, the federal government has been passionately debating whether to spend $55m nationally and how and which department is to be responsible for it. The Territory will receive about $10m of that if we are lucky.
If members opposite want someone to get the priorities right, I suggest they talk to their federal colleagues. I understand their concerns because it is a major issue and it has to be addressed nationally. I suspect the Minister for Human Services and Health, Hon Carmen Lawrence, would have a very acute knowledge of what the problems are because, for a few years, she was Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in Western Australia and, of course, she was also Premier of that state. Hopefully, she would be aware of the problems on the ground. I hope she comes to the realisation that the people to whom she has been speaking recently do not represent the people whom the member for MacDonnell represents.
While he was in Melbourne, the member may have watched the news broadcasts of the debates between the federal ministers in relation to the expenditure of the $55m and realised that all of those people represent urban-based health services. A traditional Aboriginal in Katherine said to me last week that they are whiter than I am. He and many other traditional Aboriginal people believe that these people have very little knowledge of the issues in remote Aboriginal communities and how they can best be addressed.
I will be taking up these issues with the Minister for Human Services and Health on Friday in Perth. I will be absent from the Assembly on Thursday afternoon because I will be travelling to Perth to meet with the federal minister to discuss these issues and how we can best address them. I believe the answers lie in closer cooperation between the states, ATSIC and the Commonwealth government on how much money is spent and how it is spent.
In conclusion, let me say that, in the 1994 election campaign, the Country Liberal Party issued a 13-point policy on what it would do to improve Aboriginal health in this parliamentary term. Honourable members opposite will recall that election because it is the campaign that has gone down in history as the one in which the ALP abandoned the interests of Aboriginal people. I have lost the postage stamp on which the ALP's policies were written. Nobody heard any ALP policies on Aboriginal health or the interests of Aboriginal people. The ALP abandoned Aboriginal people in the last election because it did not think they were politically
Page 421
popular. The CLP issued a 13-point policy that clearly defined our position and we have backed that with $159.6m-worth of expenditure this financial year. The member for MacDonnell needs to realise precisely what is being done by the Territory to enable him to be better informed and hopefully more factual with his responses as the opposition health spokesman.
Page 423
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016