Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I regret that I have to make this speech, yet again, about dialysis in Central Australia. For many years, I have been standing in this place and talking about the need for dialysis in Central Australia. In 2011, we made some progress. That is because we saw the release of the Central Australian Renal Study, which recommended a number of things. Firstly, it found that we are going to have—as was widely calculated from other statistics, but they confirmed it—a significant increase, in fact up to a fourfold increase, in the number of people that require dialysis support in Central Australia. The numbers could reach as high as 479 by the year 2020.

This study recommended a wide range of things: that Alice Springs becomes the main hub for dialysis, that remote communities are the spokes in a hub-and-spokes model, and that supplementary mobile and respite dialysis services are required. I have spoken in this place on many occasions about the need for community based dialysis as well, but that we need a significant investment. In response to this report, the government announced—not long after the release of the report in 2011—that they would commit $13 million to enable support, particularly for accommodation for dialysis patients. Particularly in the initial stages of their treatment and before we can get more funding to enable them to have dialysis on country, people need accommodation in the major centres they come to for dialysis support. That includes Alice Springs and Tennant Creek.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of this year we established that the government had taken $3 million of that $13 million back into consolidated revenue because it had not yet managed to spend it, because it had not reached an agreement with the Northern Territory. Later on, we received concerning information that the $10 million that was remaining would also be taken back into consolidated revenue or spent on other things. Those other things, admittedly, could be of use, but not on dialysis. What we need is focused investment on dialysis. Part of the reason for it not being spent was that the NT government was refusing to put in their contribution to the accommodation.

The government then started looking around for other projects to invest in and announced, yet again, more funding for dialysis, which was in fact part of the money that was originally committed to dialysis. As it turns out, a large part of that funding was—surprise, surprise—dependent on funding from the Northern Territory government. In other words, it was not going to be spent on dialysis. The government then chose some other general health projects. Again, they were good projects that do not deal with dialysis. Those projects, as I said, are good projects, but some of the projects are not being funded: funding into Warburton in Western Australia; funding into Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia. They are putting two chairs in Lajamanu and putting more accommodation and support into Santa Teresa. All of these things are absolutely essential for delivering improved dialysis support in Central Australia. I put it to this place, as I have raised during estimates, that investing in one chair in Lajamanu would increase dialysis support. They could use the money that would have been spent on the other chair to help support them—through accommodation or staff support, whatever is needed—to keep that one chair going instead of having no chairs.

It is ridiculous that Aboriginal communities in Central Australia are still not able to access dialysis, even though there is funding on the table. They are still not able to access that because of ongoing disputes between the federal government, the NT government and the Western Australian government. Fortunately, they have reached some agreement with the South Australian government about investment into mobile dialysis units through fitting out the bus. But we have a large number of people who are not able to access dialysis support in their community. When are we going to get this right? I welcome the day that I do not have to talk about dialysis in this place any more.