Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

As I have indicated, that is not a decision for the Commonwealth to make. What we were very focused on doing, and have been since, is working really closely with those services. As the Commonwealth, we are not going to tell those who run those services what to do. Particularly as minister at the time, I worked very closely with the Indigenous health sector and had—and still do have, even though I am no longer the minister responsible—a great deal of respect for how they run those services and for those organisations that do a great job. So that is a decision for those individual services. We will continue to work very closely. We all want to ensure the safety of our workers in those remote communities. There are specific challenges out there. We in this chamber, I think, all know that those challenges do exist, but the approach that we have taken is collectively working with the states and territories, with the services themselves and with local communities on the ground. We will get the best outcomes for safety for the workers. (Time expired)