Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Unfortunately, I have to report that the Northern Territory Country Liberal Party, or the CLP, is failing to deliver for Territorians. Have a think about this number: 376 million. That's a lot of money for a jurisdiction like ours, and that is how much the CLP Northern Territory government underspent on its own capital investment budget in 2025-26. They budgeted $2.1 billion. They only got $1.7 billion out the door. That's roads not built, businesses not supported, and health services not delivered. The Territory cannot afford this and cannot afford to stand still.

I've read the 2026-27 NT budget papers so the Territorians didn't have to. The story they tell is appalling. Over their own forward estimates, the CLP government plans to invest even less in the Territory, with capital investment declining to a low of just $1.4 billion in financial year 29-30. This is a government with no vision for how to build our Territory, and it's plain as day in their own budget papers. Here's the context that makes that failure even more indefensible: 72 per cent of the CLP government's funding in the financial year 26-27 comes from the Commonwealth. Around 47 per cent of that funding is untied, meaning that they can spend it however they choose, and they are choosing not to invest it in the Territory's future. Contractors, tradies, suppliers and local employers all across the Northern Territory are asking the same questions: Where is the pipeline of work? Where is the plan? This is taxpayers' money—your money and Territory families' money—and the CLP government is sitting on its hands while the Territory needs to be laying the groundwork for growth.

Unfortunately, this CLP government seems to be disorganised, disunited, inept and not able to understand the principles of ethical leadership, the drivers of economic growth or how to maximise our natural and human resources, which are abundant. Give Territorians a break, and get on with delivering.

Our federal government, the Albanese federal government, is getting on with delivering for the Northern Territory. Have a look at what our Albanese Labor government is doing for the Territory and the contrast with the CLP. The difference could not be more stark. This federal budget delivers record investment into Territory health care. We are committing an additional $741 million for NT public hospitals under the National Health Reform Agreement 2026-27 out to 2030-31. Total Commonwealth hospital funding reaches $3.5 billion over five years, and this funding will improve hospital waiting times, reduce ED crowding and free up hospital beds. This builds on the unprecedented 30 per cent increase in NT hospital funding we've delivered in this current 2025-26 financial year, which is a $560 million boost.

No Commonwealth government in history has invested at this level into Territory health, but this budget delivers more: $95.5 million for remote primary healthcare services in the NT, because we believe that the geography of the NT mustn't determine the health outcomes of Territorians, and $66 million in 2026-27 as a one-time fixed funding amount to address the challenges that smaller jurisdictions like ours in the Northern Territory face in delivering health services.

There is $2.7 billion committed to NT infrastructure. That is the whole infrastructure budget of the NT from the Commonwealth, including $200 million for Stuart Highway upgrades and flood resilience works; $24 million for the Bagot Road intersections, to upgrade safety on some of Darwin's most dangerous roads; and $1.8 billion nationally to make Medicare urgent care clinics permanent. This week the Darwin Medicare Urgent Care Clinic opened. We're providing long-term certainty for all urgent care clinics in the Northern Territory.

More than 116,000 bulk-billed visits have been delivered through the NT's Medicare urgent care clinics since 2023, with the Palmerston clinic in my electorate alone seeing over 37,000 visits. That's free health care in Palmerston and in Darwin right now. Our bulk-billing reforms are working. There are now 23 fully bulk-billed GP practices in the electorate of Solomon—that's Darwin and Palmerston. That is up by 15 due to our changes to bulk-billing and Medicare. Across the Territory, 87 practices are registered as fully bulk-billing, and that is helping Territorians with the cost of living, by ensuring that they can get access to free health care when they need it.

There have been more than 1.4 million cheaper scripts delivered in Solomon—in Darwin and Palmerston—and around two million across the Northern Territory. You don't have to pay to go to the doctor if you can't afford it, and you've got access to cheap PBS scripts.

As a member of the federal government, I'm very proud to say that bulk-billing has increased in every state and territory, but, as a Territorian, I'm very proud that the NT has had the biggest increase in bulk-billing rates, which are now up to 90 per cent. That is the highest in the country. That is our federal government's record in helping Territorians with the cost of living, and that is an example of what it looks like to have a government that actually governs in the interests of its constituents—in the interests of Territorians and in the interests of Australians across the board. That's what a high performing federal government like ours, the Australian Labor government, does: we are governing and delivering.

If you have a look at the CLP NT government, they are dropping the ball left, right and centre, including on the delivery of maternity health services—and this needs some focus in my time remaining. The timeline of the NT government's mismanagement on the maternity ward for the private hospital speaks volumes about the government's ineptitude. In September 2024—yes, quite a way back now—the CLP NT government were told that the Darwin Private Hospital maternity service would be closed; Healthscope was going to close it. In February 2025, Healthscope made that public, and the CLP had to admit that they had known for months. In June 2025, the private maternity ward closed.

In May, June, September and October of last year, 2025, there were ministerial correspondences between the NT government and the Commonwealth with one request from us every time: give us an appropriate, detailed, costed proposal. New South Wales did it, when the private maternity health services closed there, and the Commonwealth funded them. Tasmania did it—provided an appropriate and well-costed proposal: funded! These are competent governments—and, in Tasmania, that is a conservative government, I'm happy to say. These competent governments provided the information required when it was needed: funded, in collaboration with the Commonwealth. In February 2026, as the federal budget is being finalised, the CLP finally puts in an appropriate proposal, landing on the desk of the health minister.

Let me set the record straight for Territorians. The Commonwealth is going to assist the NT government to upgrade Royal Darwin Hospital maternity services—the health minister, Mark Butler, has confirmed it to me personally—in the MYEFO, if not before that time. But, meanwhile, it fell to me to bring up the fact that, on the Darwin Private Hospital maternity services, the NT government had gone totally quiet. They hadn't said a word about them. They had dropped the ball completely on seeing that the Darwin Private Hospital returned private maternity services. I had to bring it up on Mix FM and get the focus back on that. Where was the plan from the NT government to restore full maternity services at Darwin Private Hospital? Territory women and families paying private health insurance were getting nothing for it in terms of maternity services. The NT government couldn't see the urgency, so I raised it again.

I tell you: Territory women and families want to see some answers. Let's see a focus from this NT government on actually delivering, for Territorians, for Territory families and for Territory health care.

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