Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too commend the member for Parkes for bringing this motion forward. The health and wellbeing of those in rural and remote communities is absolutely paramount. In particular, we need to make sure that people can get the services they need when they need them.

I also want to make a comment on what the member for Gippsland was saying before he left the Federation Chamber—that students should really consider a career, particularly in a medical field, in regional, rural or remote communities. I've practised in hospitals in those settings, and you see a wide range of presentations. You become operationally and clinically independent. You also provide lifesaving and preventive care for people in communities in which health care can be quite scarce. So I want to agree with the member for Gippsland that people should definitely consider a career in regional, rural or remote healthcare settings.

Royal Far West is a charity that is dedicated to improving the health and wellbeing of country children. It was established long ago, in 1924. It provides multidisciplinary allied health screening and assessment and therapy for children up to 12 years old. The early screening and detection of pathology in younger years is so important. If it is not identified and treated, it can have huge ramifications for people as they enter their adolescence and their adult life. And it can not only have an impact on their health; it can also have an impact on their ability to study or enter the workforce, on their social interactions with other people and on how they interact in the community. So it's so important that we nip these issues in the bud early on so that they aren't exacerbated and become a significant problem into the future. That's what Royal Far West does. And it's not only in the allied health space. As the member for Riverina also pointed out, it provides capacity-building services for parents and carers, for teachers and for local health professionals.

Traditionally Royal Far West has operated from a hub in New South Wales, in Manly, but, by using telecare, its services have extended into rural areas, in New South Wales, Queensland, WA and also Victoria. We have found that, since the COVID-19 pandemic, Royal Far West has shifted its footprint from its Sydney base. Approximately 40 per cent of clinical and service staff now work in communities across the four states it services, which I think is fantastic. That's a great thing. Providing telecare and telehealth services is one thing, and there are benefits from doing that, but having people in place, in situ, where they can provide that assistance on the ground to people is something that we need. As I said, whether it's allied health, teachers, parents and carers or support staff, it's vitally important for children in these regional, rural and remote communities.

In 2023 Royal Far West supported over 21,000 country children, parents and educators, of whom 30 per cent identified as First Nations Australians. That's also an important thing to note. We know that our First Nations communities right across the country suffer from significantly worse health and social outcomes—I don't need to tell this chamber about that; a lot of our communities know that—so the support that Royal Far West is providing to these communities is absolutely necessary. We know that they also commenced telecare services in 2014 and $19.7 million over seven years has been provided through the Community Health and Hospitals Program in 2018 and 2019 to expand this service and upgrade necessary infrastructure. This funding run through to 30 June 2025.

The government has also provided Royal Far West with just on $350,000 in 2023 under the October 2022 budget—an allocation to support community sector organisations to manage the cost of staff wages and higher inflation as well. In addition to this Community Health and Hospitals Program, there has also been some community recovery program and bushfire recovery program support across Commonwealth grants.

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