Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I note from the previous speaker the attempt to show that the federal government and, particularly, the Northern Territory government and Minister Kon Vatskalis are really making an effort in this area. But, unfortunately, the fact of the matter, which is apparent for all to see, is that this is just another chronic failure by the Northern Territory Labor government and by the Rudd Labor government, under the leadership of the member for Lingiari, Warren Snowdon—ironically, the Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery.

A report from the Australian Medical Association released last week shows that end-stage renal dialysis is the most common chronic condition amongst Indigenous men checking into hospitals in Queensland, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and South Australia. It also found high levels of psychological stress amongst Indigenous people, with males being twice as likely to be hospitalised as females and twice as likely to be hospitalised as non-Indigenous males.

This relates to a huge range of factors, including illness, disability, deaths, unemployment, alcohol abuse, trouble with the law and, tragically, the old favourite overcrowded housing—and of course we look back at the complete mismanagement of the SIHIP program, which has made a very negative contribution to the health of our first Australians. The AMA said:

However, the AMA still awaits a real and active commitment on the part of governments—

that is, the Northern Territory Labor government and the Rudd Labor government—

to establish genuine, long-term health partnerships with Indigenous people.

After seeing the federal minister for Indigenous health, Warren Snowdon, publicly making a fanfare about the release of this report, I can understand why they would be frustrated about that and why they have said so. The report talked about two things. Senator Crossin amplified, ‘We will release a two-port facility.’ It is actually a mobile facility—and of course that is welcome—which is being set up in Alice Springs. That will no doubt relieve some of the concerns in Alice Springs.

Of course, Kon Vatskalis’s contribution is a summit with concrete proposals. Gee, that makes me feel better already. We need real dialysis units. That is the answer to this problem. We do not need more talkfests. I certainly support what Stephanie Bell says about restructuring governance arrangements and more respect for Indigenous health organisations. I think we should go down that path. But I find these had fairly empty reactions. I say that because of this quote from the Alice Springs Hospital general manager, Vicki Taylor, who said: ‘We have 197 dialysis patients on the books but only the capacity to treat 167.’ Well, I am not sure how you are at maths, Mr Snowdon—I am no rocket scientist at it—but that works out to be about 30 short. So sneaking in a two-bed contribution there is not going to make a single bit of difference. It flies in the face of compassion, of doing the decent thing for our first Australians, to announce that all these things are happening, to say, ‘We recognise all of these are problems and have all these recommendations,’ when the only thing you are going to do is to have a bit of a chat and provide a two-bed relief. That simply is not good enough for our first Australians living in the centre of the Northern Territory.

They have announced a ban and I can understand completely why that would be the case. As Senator Crossin indicated, they are being stretched beyond their capacity. But they are being stretched beyond their capacity because nobody planned. Labor failed to plan; that is why we have this situation. It is not as if February came round and—bang—they had 30 extra people. People know the process—and thank you, Senator Siewert, for explaining how you slowly go through this process. It is tragic, but it is a process that is well understood. We will know, by someone’s medical circumstances, that they are going to need treatment X number of times; that they are going to need a dialysis unit. Once again, we have policy underpinned by a complete and utter failure to understand the challenges—and if they accept that that is wrong then they are in even more trouble—and actually come up with a concrete answer.

I understand that the problem is now so bad that both the Western Australian and South Australian health ministers have agreed to this emergency meeting. It appears the only time you have an emergency meeting is when you get a lot of bad press. They knew about the issue before the bad press but they had to wait until the bad press came round to suddenly have an emergency. Once again the emergency is a political emergency, which seems to be the only time we have any action from the other side.

We have had much press saying that people would rather die in their homelands than travel thousands of kilometres to receive treatment. I would like to couch it a different way: people would like to live on their homelands. I will share with you a very short anecdote. To protect traditional values I will not say the man’s name, but the place is Gumeragi, and many people from the Northern Territory, particularly from Cobourg Peninsula, will remember the old man that was there. I visited him in hospital. At Darwin Hospital they had told him he had four weeks to live, and he desperately wanted to go home. So I made some arrangements. We threw a genset in the back because he needed to have 240-volt power at home to run the equipment. He lived for another year. People do not go back to their homelands to die; they go back to their homelands because on their homelands, on their country, if they have the right equipment they will live—they will live much longer. The rhetoric in the press is that this is a highly emotive issue and people would rather die on their homelands than travel. But they would rather live on their homelands. They would rather get the right treatment where they are.

The staff at Alice Springs Hospital are not bad people; they are wonderful people. You wonder how they feel about saying to people: ‘Sorry. I know you well, but you are going to have to go nearly 2,000 kilometres from your homeland to receive treatment—away from your family, away from the support units—and you will die.’ Aboriginal people will die away from country when they are that old and they are that sick. It is just a fact. It is a fact that has not been recognised. And coming out with a report that glibly talks about all the problems and in effect does nothing should be condemned. This is a very, very important matter and I do not believe it has been dealt with in a way that significantly recognises the problem.

There are a number of other matters in the health area where, between them, this government and the Northern Territory government have fallen incredibly short. I quote from the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday, 16 November, which said:

Trachoma is a disease that starts as conjunctivitis but gradually, with repeated infection, turns the eyelashes inwards so that they scrape the cornea, scarring it, rendering it opaque, causing blindness.

It is actually easily treated with antibiotics. Some of the best work that has been done in this area is in the country I was brought up in, Malawi in Africa. You just treat everybody with antibiotics and it gets fixed. Because it causes blindness it is a horrific thing. Do you know that 25 per cent of children between five and 15 years old have trachoma? Do you know where they live? They live in Katherine, a three-hour drive from Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory. I do not even know what to say about that. This government has been in for two years and the Northern Territory government has been in forever—that is what I think—and when you see facts like that you ask: ‘Why can’t you do something about it?’ If we can deal with it in Nepal, if we can deal with it in central Africa, why can’t we deal with that in Katherine?