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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-05-08 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Mr McKenzie

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (15:02): I rise today to speak on the passing of Anangu elder Mr McKenzie, who died on Wednesday evening in Alice Springs. In respect of Anangu culture, I will refer to him only by his last name.

Mr McKenzie was an Anangu elder who hailed from the remote APY lands' community of Pukatja, also referred to by some as Ernabella. Mr McKenzie was a former community minister in the Uniting Church, was ordained as a minister in the International Communion, and held certificates of theology from the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the Uniting Church.

As well as being a man of God, Mr McKenzie was a tireless advocate for the plight of people in the APY lands suffering from renal disease. It is with great sadness that I learnt yesterday that the very disease that he fought so hard against was also the disease that claimed him. He died in his Alice Springs boarding hostel, where he was living while he received treatment for this terrible disease. He was just 53 years of age.

Mr McKenzie and I met when he gave evidence to the Aboriginal Lands Parliamentary Standing Committee in September last year. He had left the Queen Elizabeth Hospital , where he was receiving treatment, to address the committee, and spoke passionately and bravely about the complete lack of dialysis on the APY lands. He said he wanted to return to his home. He said too many people were returning home in a coffin.

Mr McKenzie was desperate to be as close to his lands and his people as possible. He was known to often leave Alice Springs or Adelaide suddenly, and against doctors orders, and travel back to his community to see his family. Unfortunately he could not survive without dialysis, which he had every three days, and he would fall gravely ill whenever he returned home. It was a cruel fate, and one that left him to die in Alice Springs, 450 kilometres away from his loved Pukatja community.

I am a firm believer in the need for a permanent renal dialysis unit on the APY lands. This is why I visited Alice Springs last year to meet with Western Desert Dialysis, which successfully manages six permanent dialysis units in remote Aboriginal communities in both Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This is why I committed to work with the federal government and Western Desert Dialysis to build a permanent dialysis unit on the APY lands in the lead up to the 2014 general election. I was disappointed to hear the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation confirm that the Labor government will not be adopting this policy as its own. I know this is hugely disappointing for the people on the APY lands and was personally devastating for Mr McKenzie.

I was disappointed to read in the Hansard of the other place in recent days that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation described our Liberal Party policy as a sham. In particular, he said that the Liberal Party tried to perpetrate a sham on the South Australian community in relation to its policy. He did not tell the community that to fund this they would be cutting dialysis services in Port Augusta and in Adelaide; they would be cutting dialysis services to the mobile truck and saying, 'There is only one place where you will be able to get the services' even though they know full well that the Anangu community is incredibly mobile over different times of the year. Of course we understand this, and it is absolutely shameful that a minister of the Crown would make these statements in the other place.

There was no suggestion ever that the Liberal Party would be cutting the service in Port Augusta or in Adelaide or, in fact, the mobile truck service which I think to this point in time has never even operated. The simple fact of the matter is we were listening to the Anangu community—we were listening to the people suffering from this insidious disease—and putting permanent renal dialysis facilities onto the APY Lands is something which is long overdue for the people who live there.

The Central Australia Renal Study was conducted and reported on many years ago, and it has been very disappointing that this government has paid no attention to the recommendations in this report. I know this falls outside of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation's portfolio, but I impress upon the Minister for Health in this chamber to please consider permanent dialysis on the APY Lands. Mr McKenzie was a pillar of his community who spoke openly and honestly about the issues facing his people and he will certainly be very greatly missed.

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