SENATOR JACINTA NAMPIJINPA PRICE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS

SHADOW MINISTER FOR GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY

SENATOR FOR THE NORTHERN TERRITORY

SENATOR THE HON. ANNE RUSTON

SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGED CARE

SHADOW MINISTER FOR SPORT

SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

THE HON. JO HERSEY MLA

NORTHERN TERRITORY MEMBER FOR KATHERINE

TRANSCRIPT

JOINT DOORSTOP – KATHERINE, NT

TOPICS: Coalition announcement of $7.6 million for Tresillian; Outcomes-based healthcare; Workforce retention in regional areas; Coalition's commitment to Regional Australia; Crime and anti-social behaviour in the Community; Coalition Commitment to Royal Commission into Sexual Abuse in Indigenous Communities

17 April 2025

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: Thank you. Well, it's lovely to be here today in Katherine with my shadow cabinet colleague, Anne Ruston, Shadow Minister for Health and also Member for Katherine Jo Hersey. Today is a wonderful announcement because as part of the the future Coalition government, we have committed to $7.6 million for Tresillian post-natal care center and also two vehicles for those working in the center to be able to take care of clients around Katherine region. We know that Katherine, like many of the major centers in the Northern Territory, is a service center for surrounding communities. And this especially is important to ensure that we're doing a number of things here. So Tresillian is available to everybody in the community, it has a large set of clients who are Indigenous, and we know that through the Closing the Gap initiatives that are failing in terms of, you know the birth weights of Indigenous babies and, you know, the careful and health of indigenous babies. So we want to make sure that we are addressing this specific target, especially within this area. But this is an investment that is outcomes-based. It is not about delivering specifically to an Indigenous organisation, but one that we know that services an entire community and everybody within that community, but is doing a great deal of work in this area, especially for Indigenous babies. And this is very important in order to achieve the targets in terms of closing the gap.

And it also addresses a more broader issue. So it's babies are being taken care of, mothers and families learning and understanding how to care for babies, we are addressing the broader issues in the immediate term, so ensuring that children get a good start in life is really important so that they don't end up where we see a lot of our young people here in the Northern Territory in a life, you know, that goes down to youth incarceration, youth crime, out of home care. We want to make sure that we are supporting families from the absolute get go, and this is how we're tackling that right now. So it pleases me to be able to make this commitment and have our own Shadow Health Minister here in the Northern Territory, along with a number of wonderful announcements that we've been able to make today. I will now hand it to Anne Ruston.

Senator Anne Ruston: Thanks very much Jacinta it's fantastic to be here, and thanks Jo, it's great to be here in Katherine. The sad reality is the further you get away from the metropolitan areas, the worse our health outcomes are. And that's why it's so important that we make this investment in young people in our community. The babies here in Katherine and surrounding districts, because if we can make an investment early on in the life of a young Australian, we know that we have much better outcomes. So, absolutely delighted to be here today to make this announcement of $76 million to invest in the babies of the Katherine community and surrounding districts.

But the tragic reality right now, as we stand here, is that it has never been harder or more expensive to get access to primary care in this country. And the further you get away from the metropolitan area, the further you are away from the east coast, the worse that is. So what we want to do is to make sure that we address the issues of the primary care crisis that we have seen in the last three years. Bulk-billing rates rights plummeted across the nation by 11% from 88% to 77%. We've seen the highest out of pocket costs that we have ever seen before with Australians when they go to see the doctor having to put their hand in their pocket and pay more. In fact, 1.5 million Australians last year chose not to see their doctor because they simply said they couldn't afford to do so. And when you're talking about young babies and the support and the help that they and their families and particularly their mothers need to make sure they get a good start in life, this could not be more critical to a community like Katherine. Because we know that it is very difficult here in Katherine. We know of the stories of the primary care crisis that exist here in this community. So today we are really pleased to be able to make an investment in this community, the babies of this community, because we have a primary care crisis across the whole of Australia. And if we don't start making investments on the ground to deliver real practical outcomes, we are going to do a disservice to the current and future generations. So, great to be here in Katherine and great to be able to make this announcement on behalf of the young people in this community.

Minister Jo Hersey: Thanks, it's great to be here with Senator Price and Senator Ruston today with this announcement for family care. And we know in Katherine that, you know, health, with our health services, we are almost at a crisis point. We've had two clinics close down recently, and this just provides our community with better health care. And as Senator Ruston said, the further you get out from the major centers we know here in Katherine only too well that those health care services are not being provided. And I think this will bolster those health care services. And I'm very excited to be here with the senators today for this announcement.

Question: Can I ask firstly, it sounds as though what you're announcing might require more more people, more staff. Can I check firstly that's right? And if so, how are you going to get them, because we know services really do struggle to attract staff to places like Katherine?

Senator Anne Ruston: That is that is probably one of the most critical issues that we are currently facing at the moment when it comes to primary care is access to staff. The medical professionals that we need in order to deliver services. And that was why yesterday, alongside David Littleproud, the leader of the National Party, we made an announcement about a $100 million investment into growing the pipeline of GPs in this country. Because general practice is the absolute centrepiece of Medicare, which is the centrepiece of primary care. And so this investment is 200 additional places every year ongoing for medical graduates to study. It's also putting in place additional infrastructure to make sure that when those students are training in rural and regional areas and these places are absolutely focused on rural and regional doctors, to make sure that we've got the infrastructure in place to support those doctors when they train in rural and regional areas, because the reality is, if they training in regional areas, they're more likely to stay in regional areas. And this is on top of an over $600 million package that the Coalition has already announced in relation to workforce. Because we have been saying for the last three years, unless you deal with the issue of workforce, you will not deal with the issues of primary care. So we are really pleased to have made a commitment now this in excess of $700 million towards workforce going forward. But also yesterday's announcement was part of the Regional Australia Future Fund, which means every year ongoing as part of the dividend from this fund that will be established under a coalition government, a Dutton-Littleproud government, there'll be $100 million every year invested into regional health solutions, just like we're seeing here today.

Question: This might be a question for both the senators and you too Jo if you'd like to weigh in. The clinics in Katherine do get broken into quite a bit. And we know that health workers, you know, in their own homes, they're experiencing break ins, as are a lot of people in the community. Do you see a link between the sort of crime and anti-social behaviour issue and the workforce retention issue in healthcare?

Senator Anne Ruston: Well, obviously I would defer to my colleagues who actually live in the Northern Territory around the specifics of your question. But, I mean, there was absolutely no doubt that no matter who you are, you should feel safe in your workplace and you should feel safe at home. And that is why a Dutton-Littleproud Coalition government will focus very, very strongly on making sure that everybody in a society feels safe, but I'll allow Jacinta and Jo to perhaps respond specifically.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: I just want to say a couple of words on that and look, the Northern Territory is, we're still getting back to some level of normalcy after a Labor government has basically done everything they can to increase the rate of crime within the Northern Territory and sat back while those levels have, you know, gone off the rails. I know that under Lia Finnochiaro's government with Jo Hersey as part of that government, they've been doing everything they can to address the anti-social and crime issues within the Northern Territory. Obviously it's going to take some time, but as we've seen within the first 100 days of government, they managed to get 300 of those individuals with outstanding warrants off our streets to make our homes and places safer and and make the Territory in places like Katherine, places that those across sectors want to be able to come and live and work in. So that is being worked on I know, and I have every faith in Lia Finnochiaro's government to continue down that path. And if we are elected at the next federal election, we'll be able to work hand in glove with them to to continue to push for safer communities and especially tackling things like domestic and family violence and strengthening helping to strengthen bail laws and putting the message out there that we will not accept anti-social behaviour and criminal behavior nor domestic and family violence. And particularly in my role as as if I become the Minister for Indigenous Australians, I will be lifting standards when it comes to governance on Indigenous organisations. You know, we've seen a number of organisations in recent times with CEOs who have had domestic violence histories. I will be lifting the bar where we don't have to have leadership in such organisations that are very powerful. And the expectation will be that you don't have a criminal history history of domestic violence if you want to sit on a board or sit as Chair in a powerful leadership position. And this is this has been a long time coming, but I think we need to set the bar at that level, at the leadership level, so that we are sending a message to communities more, more broadly that we've all got to do better within this space and help toward easing things like crime in our communities.

Minister Jo Hersey: Yeah, so obviously we are eight short months into a new government and we have been doing a lot of things strengthening bail laws, giving police more powers. And, you know, more broadly here in Katherine, the police have been doing an amazing job recently. And to, you know, the the connection between families living here and crime and anti-social behaviour, that is something that we continuing to work, continuing to work hard on each and every day because we know that families need to feel safe in our community. We want families to come here, be able to go to the high school, be able to go to the shopping centre and feel safe and actually lie in their bed at night time and feel safe. And we will not stop until the the, the roles of the victims are actually above the rights of the offender. So we are continuing to work hard each and every day in strengthening the law and making sure that those victims do feel safe.

Question: Just a couple more local issues, if I may. And maybe for you Senator, just two nights ago in Katherine there was a very large disturbance about 1:00 in the morning. Police say that they believe it was an arranged fight. About 50 people were there, 15 active participants. And I thought it was quite, I mean, I've only been a Katherine a year and a half, but it it does feel like a bit of a change. And the police was saying that they believe it's about a feud between groups from outside of Katherinne and groups from inside of Katherine, and that they're really urging community elders and leaders to help them de-escalate these tensions. Feels like maybe something you would be familiar with from the Alice Springs context. But something that's now appears to be happening in Katherine. What do you think that should look like? I mean, how can the police work better with the community to try to calm those tensions down so we don't get ongoing feuds happening in the town?

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: Yeah look absolutely and I think the activist class have got to pull their heads in and have, you know, stop painting police in a bad light because we do need good relationships between the police and communities. And I know growing up in the Northern Territory and also having a number of, you know, Indigenous police officers within my family, out in the community of Yuendumu, they did a lot of work to ensure that, you know, feuds were dealt with appropriately and were able to de-escalate those sorts of things when they came along. And we need to continue to build on that. I think the police are doing the right thing in terms of working with communities to de-escalate what could potentially be violent feuds and outbreaks. And again, we need to have really clear conversation and debate. Again, the activist class need to but out when they try to, you know, go down the ideological route of suggesting that it's all because of colonisation that we experience rates of violence in Indigenous communities. No, between Indigenous groups we need to have conversations ourselves in our families and say, "hey, you know what, maybe we shouldn't no longer, maybe we should no longer apply things like cultural payback, which is violence, which is cultural violence, accepted cultural violence within our communities and amongst our family members and deal with things differently." And I think that's really important going forward, not just for, you know, the community, but more broadly for children growing up in those families and in those communities, to see that we can do things differently moving forward and de-escalating violence is so much more important. But we need to have those conversations. We need to have healthy debate around it instead of listening to, you know, the activist class who like to divide and conquer and suggest that Indigenous Australians are all all victims of colonisation. We need to own our own part in all of this ourselves personally, our families and within our communities, because that is what real leadership looks like, and that is how we get around to be able to take responsibility and de-escalate violence in communities.

Question: Can I just ask on your policy for a royal commission into sexual abuse of Indigenous kids? Your candidate in Lingiari Lisa Siebert this morning was saying she actually would like to see that not just limited to Indigenous kids, but all kids. Has the Coalition's policy changed?

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: No the Coalition's policy hasn't changed on that. And I absolutely respect our our colleague's view on that matter. It is an important matter with regard to all children. Obviously, my, my, my direction in this is to actually deal with the fact that, you know, we talk about disproportionate levels of youth incarceration when it comes to our Indigenous youth, disproportionate levels of out of home care when it comes to Indigenous children. So disproportionately, Indigenous children are faced with exposure to sexual abuse. And so we want to make sure that we're getting a clear indication of what this looks like, which I think is absolutely needed. And I it's it's about time this occurred. My greatest disappointment is the fact that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, along with Adam Bandt, his mate in the Greens and the teals, every time that we have tried to put a motion on the floor of the Senate or the lower house to hold this Royal Commission into sexual abuse of Indigenous children, they have denied it outright. So they're not interested in improving the lives of our most marginalised children in this country and getting to the bottom of why we have the highest rates of sexual abuse amongst Indigenous children. They're more interested in the activist vote. They're not interested in upholding the human rights of our most marginalised children who are Australian citizens in this country and deserve the right to be protected. Only then, if we address this issue wholeheartedly, will we be able to see how we can reduce rights of out of home care; of Indigenous youth incarceration. Because let's face it, we need to get to the core and the crux of the issue as to why it's occurring, especially with the increase of youth suicide in this country as well. So that is an absolute focus and that is specific to my portfolio, should I become the next Indigenous affairs minister. But yeah – all children are precious, absolutely. But my focus within this portfolio is for those who are the most marginalised and experiencing the highest rates in this country, and that is what we've committed to in the first hundred days of government, should we win.

Question: Just just one more follow up on that, that I mean, Lisa Siebert being a former police officer and, you know, a Territory person, I'm sure I would agree with you on many of those issues. But, you know, she I guess she seems to fairly strongly feel that it would be a missed opportunity not to include all kids in this. Is there any way she can convince you? Are you open to that discussion?

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: Look, what I would say is that we have in the past and under Peter Dutton's previous role, previous ministerial roles that he's held and into the future will continue to invest in attacking child exploitation. That is absolutely an area that we're focused on and supporting the vulnerable within our communities more broadly. Absolutely. But as I said, the Royal Commission into the Sexual Abuse within Indigenous communities is just that. And look, you know, that's the that's those within Indigenous communities. And that would that would be anybody within those communities.