Dave Tollner (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For many years now residents in Palmerston, a city in my electorate, have been calling for medical services to be instigated in their area. In 2001 a 24-hour medical centre was established in Palmerston to look after families in that area but, immediately following the election that year of the Clare Martin government, the 24-hour medical centre was reduced to simply an after-hours medical service. It was not a 24-hour centre at all. Very recently the Northern Territory government announced that they had completely withdrawn funding to the Farrer Medical Centre, which is located in that health precinct, and the medical centre will be forced to close at some time in the future. At the time that the Territory government made this announcement they said it was because the Commonwealth government refused to fund the centre and it was all the fault of the Commonwealth government, irrespective of the fact that they had withdrawn their funding and had made no application.

Just last week, Senator Trish Crossin sent a letter to residents in Palmerston, decrying the lack of GPs in that area and, again, blaming that on the Howard government. She said in that letter: ‘In the last year, the Howard government has given grant funding to more than 60 GP services around Australia to provide after-hours services. Only one of these has been in the NT, located at Stuart Park, but $380,000 was given to support a private after-hours GP clinic in Albury in New South Wales.’ For the information of Senator Crossin, this was the only round of funding that has been announced by the federal government and there was only one GP service in my electorate that applied for that funding, and that of course was the Stuart Park medical centre. A hit rate of 100 per cent is not bad for any electorate.

Trish Crossin further says in her letter: ‘Territorians need better support from the Commonwealth government when it comes to supplying GPs and especially after-hours services. If it has funded after-hours clinics around Australia, why hasn’t it also funded one in Palmerston?’ For the information of Senator Crossin, the reason one was not funded in Palmerston is that one in Palmerston never applied. There has been no application by the Farrer Medical Centre or any other centre in that round of funding. Senator Crossin, come to me and tell me who deserves to be blamed. (Time expired)