Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this important motion. The health status of all people is influenced by cultural, political, environmental and economic determinants. A true partnership approach not only builds a stronger health system but, importantly, ensures it is equipped to better meet the complex and multilayered health challenges facing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, particularly in my electorate of Lingiari. Nowhere is this more evident than in maternal health care.

NT Aboriginal women and their babies experience poorer health outcomes compared to non-Indigenous mothers and their babies. The rate of preterm birth is almost double that of non-Indigenous mums, and birthing-on-country models of care directly contribute to closing the gap in this critical area of health policy. The birthing and health centre in Galiwinku in the Northern Territory is an innovative, solution-focused project that supports Yolngu women's self-determination and control over their reproductive health as well as improved maternal health outcomes, with more babies born at healthy birth weight. This project will also create long-term employment for a Yolngu women's workforce.

Congress alukura, or birthing-by-grandmothers law, has been an important feature in Alice Springs for many decades. Recently, a new alukura birthing service has been opened by the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress. The Alukura Midwifery Group Practice allows women to keep the same midwife through their pregnancy and birth. Through a partnership with the Alice Springs Hospital, women can now have their congress midwife alongside them up to and during the birth of their child at the hospital.

Birthing on country gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander babies and their families, most particularly their mums, the best start in life. For more than 60,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have birthed their babies on traditional lands. Future generations of women and babies will thrive and flourish through a holistic approach to health that incorporates traditional practice, through connection with land and country, with Western knowledge systems of medicine.

In speaking about this important issue, I want to acknowledge all the nurses, midwives, doctors and specialists that play a vital role for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in making sure that mums end up with healthy babies. I want to take what time I have to pay tribute to the important work and dedication over many years of two women in particular: Molly Wardaguga and Professor Sue Kildea. Molly, who I met many years ago, in the early 2000s, was an Aboriginal health worker who delivered many of the young people that we see around Maningrida. Professor Sue Kildea was an avid young nurse at that time—and she'd probably kill me for saying that—at Maningrida, in the Northern Territory. I have recently spoken to Sue, who has continued this passionate work of Molly, who passed in the early 2000s. Sue has continued to advocate the work and the Birthing on Country program.

I do want to acknowledge many of our RNs that are working tirelessly in the Northern Territory with community controlled Aboriginal health services to turn around the low birth rates and to look at its importance and how we can advance birthing and health centres in Galiwin'ku. Women on Christmas and Cocos have also raised with me some of the barriers that they face, such as having to come off the island and move to Perth, thousands of kilometres away from their families, to have their children. Often that can come at great expense to those families.

I want to finish this speech by saying that every woman deserves a choice in their birthing journey, and it doesn't matter whether they're Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, they're non-Aboriginal women or they're Muslim women. It does not matter who we are; I think all women deserve a choice in their birthing journey.

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