Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) | Link to this | Hansard source

I will get to my 10-minute statement, but, before she leaves the chamber, I'll just place on the record my personal thanks for the years that I've spent working with Senator Askew and for her contribution to the community affairs committee, particularly. I had the opportunity to work with her quite closely when I chaired the Senate Select Committee into the Provision of and Access to Dental Services in Australia, and came to know, through that work, her passion for these areas of policy—particularly supports for Australians recovering from or journeying with cancer. I wish her well and happiness in this new chapter of life.

With that said, I will move to the subject of my speech, which is health care in Western Australia. It is fair to say that Western Australians often feel misunderstood by those in Canberra. Often it is perceived that decisions made on the east coast don't reflect the realities or the needs of our communities. I have to say that, in my time in the Senate, I have seen members of parliament that represent WA play those feelings up for political gain, but I've also seen instances where that feeling is very much justified—and one of those areas is the provision of health care.

In Western Australia we have a situation right now where there are large areas of our community that go without the basic provisions of health care in this country—and I do mean the basics. I mean the ability to go to the doctor if you're sick, to see a GP, to have a hospital with a doctor present to help you. These communities often don't make headlines because they are regarded and classed as rural, regional or remote communities. They are easily placed, it seems, out of mind, because they are out of the sight of those in positions of power—and that is wrong.

The level of government often closest to these communities, most accountable to them directly, is local government and local shires. These structures—and often we're talking about communities of fewer than 5,000 people—were never created with the purpose of funding and maintaining healthcare services. That isn't what local government was meant to do in Western Australia; it's not what it's constituted to do. Yet, according to a report by the WA Local Government Association, some 41 local governments are right now spending ratepayers' money to keep healthcare services functioning within the community—and I'm talking about directly.

Many of these local governments directly fund GPs, directly pay for medical surgeries and directly pay for the housing and transport of doctors, just to keep a bare minimum—a baseline, a lifeline—of medical service within those communities. These are local governments that are often really struggling to make ends meet and to make budgets match up. Yet they're having to dedicate hundreds of thousands of dollars of ratepayer money to keep these services going. Even with the effort and energy that's going in, there are many communities in Western Australia that are staring down the barrel, for the first time, of having no GP access, or they have been struggling for years without a nursing station, or they have a hospital without a doctor.

Recently, there was an announcement that the Kalbarri Doctors Surgery in Western Australia has decided to close its doors. It can no longer function. For folks in Canberra, the name 'Kalbarri' and what this might mean might not trigger anything or ring a bell. But what this means for this WA community is that people will have to now drive up to 100 kilometres to see a GP. So few people in here can imagine what it's actually like to have to look at that expense to get basic medical care. We see in community after community the healthcare service kept afloat because of local government. As I said, this places legitimate stress and strain on budgets.

Some local governments, about a year ago, began to realise that—in fact, it was more than a few years ago—there was a potential avenue for them to get more revenue to be able to fund these health services. They'd been coming to Canberra, again and again, saying: 'We need to fund these services through the healthcare system. Local government can't bear the weight, and a lot of the policy made in Canberra doesn't account for the cost of delivery of service in rural, regional and remote communities.' Those requests are too often turned away. So they looked to find other revenue sources of their own so that they didn't have to put the cost on to ratepayers. They realised that some of the wealthiest corporations in Australia—the mining companies—had not been paying rates, even though legally they were in fact required to. So, after asking nicely, they took them to court.

Initially, the application to the court was rejected. But a couple of plucky local governments decided to appeal that ruling—and one at the higher court—so that they would have the power to require mining companies to pay rates, just like everybody else has to. It was a moment where, finally, funding these services sustainably would maybe be possible, and then what happened? WA Labor, owned and operated as they are by the big mining companies—in their pocket—rode to the corporate rescue and rammed through legislation that not only cut off the avenue to raise rates from mining companies for these struggling local governments but also required those local governments to back pay the big corporations for any rates that they had taken. So now so many of them are back to square one.

This decision made me so angry because I know how much hope there was in these local governments for that brief period of time, where maybe they'd be able to make these health systems work and maybe they would be able to fund these things properly, and then it was taken away. Well, it's time for the Commonwealth to step in, step up and meet the need of the communities in Western Australia, in our rural, regional and remote communities, to make sure that people have health care. If resources are needed to do that, then let's tax the big gas exporters. Let's tax the wealthy mining corporations. Gina Rinehart can put in a bit more so that the people of Hopetoun can have a staffed nursing station and so that the people of Kalbarri can go to see a GP without having to drive for 100 kilometres. Come on—let's put these communities first. Let's put these people first.