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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-05-03 Daily Xml
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Nganampa Health Council

Ms PRATT (Frome) (17:17): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. During the election campaign, the Labor Party promised to provide $5.2 million to the Nganampa Health Council to cover the cost of implementation of Gayle's Law. How much will be provided to other Aboriginal community-controlled health organisations and other health providers who face increased costs to implement this law?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (17:17): Thank you once again to the member for Frome. This is a really important commitment that we made. Last year, the now Premier, the now Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, myself, the member for Giles and the Minister for Education all visited the APY lands, met with Nganampa Health as part of that visit and heard issues that they have in terms of the implementation of Gayle's Law, which is something that we on this side, and hopefully the whole parliament, agree is vitally important in terms of making sure that we can protect our nurses in remote areas of South Australia.

They put a proposal to us, which I understand that they put to the previous government as well but hadn't heard back on, in terms of providing funding support to hire and train up additional staff to make sure that they could fully enact the protections for nurses on the APY lands. This was something I have to say—and much disappointment perhaps to the Treasurer—that the Premier was very keen and eager to make sure that we made a commitment to this because it is so important for providing those services.

I really thank Nganampa Health for the work they do but also the fact that they had clearly put the work in to develop this plan and proposal, to put it before the government and the then opposition at the time, and certainly we as the opposition were very eager to make sure that we could implement this because it is so important. Thankfully, we are now in a position where we will be able to do so.

As part of my new role, I will be eager to hear from, as well as working with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, and to work with other Aboriginal communities in terms of issues that they have in terms of not only Gayle's Law but other issues as well. There clearly are a multitude of issues that people are having right across the community. One of those that we also made a commitment for in the election was in relation to Yadu Health at Ceduna, in terms of the facilities they had which were literally crumbling and where people had been electrocuted in the facilities that are available to them at the moment.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: Who owned that building?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: This is an SA Health building, so this is something they have been raising with the government repeatedly, under the previous government.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis interjecting:

The Hon. C.J. PICTON: Yes, somebody was saying that, I seem to recall, but in fact it's an SA Health facility. We actually have a commitment from federal Labor to upgrade that facility, and we made a commitment of $2.5 million to invest in additional housing for workers to come into that area to make sure that we can provide the health services that local communities need. This absolutely needs to be a priority in terms of investment and work in terms of Aboriginal health.

I look forward to working with all the Aboriginal-controlled health organisations across South Australia. I would particularly like to thank Nganampa and Yadu for raising these issues with us, and we look forward to implementing the very clear election commitments that we made in those areas.

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