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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-10-31 Daily Xml
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FRONTIER SERVICES

The Hon. S.G. WADE (15:25): The year 2012 marks the centenary of Frontier Services, a service which provides community and health care to outback Australia. The story of Frontier Services began with the vision of one man—John Flynn. During his theological training in Victoria in the early 1900s, John Flynn became interested in working with the people of inland Australia, even writing a handbook called The Bushman's Companion.

Upon graduation at the end of 1910, Flynn accepted a two-year placement at the Smith of Dunesk Mission in Beltana, South Australia. There he worked with Sister Latto Bett and was there when the hospital opened in 1911. In 1912, Flynn was commissioned by the Victorian Home Mission Committee and the Australian Board of Missions to do a survey of Aboriginal welfare and the needs of European settlers in the Northern Territory. A year earlier, the Territory had separated from South Australia and transferred to commonwealth control.

Flynn looked at the hardships the people faced and their spiritual needs and, in response to the report, on 26 December 1912, the Presbyterian Church appointed Flynn as a superintendent and the Australian Inland Mission was born. By the end of World War I, the mission was running five nursing hostels and four patrols. By 1928, the mission had set up an aerial ambulance service based out of Cloncurry in Queensland. This work became the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The mission's work in communications opened up the outback. The mission indeed became a much-needed mantle of safety for the isolated outback communities. Today, the Australian Inland Mission has become Frontier Services, the largest provider of remote ministry and of aged and community care in remote Australia, and delivers a wide range of other services including health care, children's services, community support and volunteer assistance. Nearly 1,000 staff provide approximately 120 services across 85 per cent of the continent.

The Reverend John Flynn's outback work started in South Australia, and South Australia continues to benefit from his legacy. Frontier Services provide health care from Andamooka and Marla. The Andamooka Centre was opened in 1965 and Marla in 1995; both centres are staffed by two remote area nurses. Along with general pastoral care, patrol ministers conduct funerals, weddings, baptisms and town celebrations in a variety of contexts. The South Australian patrol minister is based in Port Augusta and covers an area including the Flinders and Gammon ranges and the Lake Eyre Basin.

Within this region are the communities of Hawker, Leigh Creek, Nepabunna, Marree, Coober Pedy, Iga Warta, Marla and Oodnadatta. The focus of the ministry in this patrol is the Aboriginal communities spread throughout the region. The Parkin patrol based in Hawker, South Australia, covers the north-east and north-central areas of South Australia to the Queensland and Northern Territory borders.

This includes the communities of Andamooka, Leigh Creek, Marree, the Moomba gas fields, Innamincka, Mintabie and Marla. The Sturt patrol based in Orroroo covers an area of 150 kilometres either side of the Barrier Highway, from Peterborough to Cockburn. It includes the settlements of Yunta, Mannahill, Olary, and Cockburn along with the ranges of the Danggali Conservation Park and the Gawler Ranges.

South Australians also benefit from the Outback Links program, which links appropriately skilled and gifted volunteers with outback Australians who are in need of assistance. Frontier Services has been celebrating its 100th birthday throughout 2012, and it was my privilege to represent the Leader of the Opposition at the centenary of Frontier Services at the Adelaide West Uniting Church on Sunday, 29 July 2012.

The National Library of Australia is holding a photographic display called 'Beyond the furthest fences: the Australian Inland Mission'. The exhibition will be open until 2013. This is particularly appropriate because John Flynn was an avid amateur photographer, and the exhibition draws from over 4,400 images in the Frontier Services collection held by the National Library. Frontier Services also published a centenary coffee table-style book called At the Very Heart, written by Storry Walton and published by Wakefield Press. It is full of rare photographs.

I thank God, John Flynn, and the countless band of workers and volunteers for the work that Frontier Services has done over the past century. I congratulate Frontier Services on its centenary and look forward to the work that will be done in the future to provide physical, medical and spiritual support to isolated inland communities around Australia.

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