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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-22 Daily Xml
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Yadu Health Aboriginal Corporation

The Hon. M. EL DANNAWI (14:24): My question is to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Will the minister inform the council about his recent visit Yadu Health Aboriginal Corporation in Ceduna?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (14:25): I thank the honourable question for her question about an area that I have portfolio responsibility for and am happy to inform the chamber of.

On a very recent visit to the Far West Coast of the state I had the privilege to meet with the Chief Executive Officer of Yadu Health Aboriginal Corporation, Leeroy Bilney. Leeroy has recently taken over the helm of Yadu Health from longstanding community leader and chief executive Zell Dodd. Established in 1986 as the Ceduna Koonibba Aboriginal Health Service, Yadu Health provides a suite of primary health services to the surrounding Aboriginal communities on the Far West Coast, which include Ceduna, Koonibba and Scotdesco. These services include general practitioners, nurses, visiting specialists and Aboriginal health support workers.

Yadu Health also plays a significant role in community programs like Connected Beginnings, which assists community with maternal, child and family health activities; social and emotional wellbeing, which includes emergency financial assistance, family support, housing support and liaison domestic abuse health and wellness programs; community home support, providing support to in-home care for elders; and youth programs and the Yadu Health Community Gym.

With that list of programs it is easy to understand just how significant Yadu Health is in providing health and wellbeing services to support Ceduna and its surrounding communities. However, for far too long Yadu Health was forced to provide many of these services out of a building with crumbling asbestos, black mould and wiring that posed an electrocution risk to staff when it rained. Additionally, this building was previously utilised by the Department for Community Welfare, where, as locals have told me, mums would take their children never to see them again, hardly a place that many Aboriginal people would consider safe and a place for wellbeing.

That is why in opposition the state Labor government in partnership with the federal Labor government committed a combined total of $15.8 million for Yadu Health to have a new purpose-built health clinic. It was one of the most extraordinarily disappointing comments I have heard in public life when we made this announcement to be met with a comment from the minister in the Liberal government at the time responsible for Aboriginal affairs of, 'Taxpayers should be extraordinarily concerned.'

Comments like this in the face of trying to improve a health service to deliver to some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable South Australians in a building that, as I have said, was riddled with black mould, asbestos over much of it and dangerous electrical faults that I have seen firsthand a number of times concerned me extremely. I was extremely concerned. I would argue that any taxpayers who visited the old clinic would be extraordinarily concerned at the conditions Aboriginal people were forced to tolerate.

After our meeting in Ceduna, Leeroy Bilney provided a visit to the site to see the progress of the demolition—there is now a cleared space. I am pleased to report that the purpose-built facility is on track to be completed by the end of 2025. I look forward to seeing completion of the build and would like to thank former chief executive officer Zell Dodd; the current incumbent in that position, Leeroy Bilney; in particular Warren Miller for his staunch advocacy; and all Yadu Health staff and the community for their ongoing advocacy in advancing the wellbeing of Aboriginal people on the Far West Coast.

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