THE HON. MARK COULTON MP, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TRADE, TOURISM AND INVESTMENT:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a great honour for me to welcome my friend and colleague the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, to Broken Hill, to the Flying Doctor base, to this iconic location, in this iconic city.
The Flying Doctor has been here for 90 years and has served the people of regional and rural Australia for all that time. To see what’s happening here today in the base has been absolutely sensational. The city of Broken Hill, Prime Minister, is a wonderful city. It has a great heritage, quite unique to anywhere else in Australia.
I’m very proud to represent the people of the far west and Broken Hill in the Australian Parliament and I’m very honoured to have you here today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, Mark. It’s great to be here with you and the Deputy Prime Minister and Martin and Greg from the RFDS and the whole team. We’re here to announce a commitment of an additional $84 million to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, bringing the Commonwealth contribution to the Royal Flying Doctor Service to $327 million over the next four years.
What that’s going to do is enable the Royal Flying Doctor Service to deliver more services, particularly mental health services and dental services.
Martin, it’s going to enable you to employ an additional 50 psychologists and mental health nurses, is that right?
MARTIN LAVERTY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ROYAL FLYING DOCTOR SERVICE:
In the parts of Australia where they’re needed most.
PRIME MINISTER:
Come and tell us a bit about it. Martin is the CEO of the Royal Flying Doctor Service and he’s doing a great job, isn’t he Michael?
THE HON. MICHAEL MCCORMACK MP, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
He is indeed.
PRIME MINISTER:
He is, supported by Greg who is the South East Australia Service Section CEO. So just how important is this additional funding going to be for you?
MARTIN LAVERTY:
Well Prime Minister, as you know, country Australians see doctors at only half the rate of people who live in the city. Today, with your Government’s support, we will be able to provide medical services right across remote Australia. We’ll be able to extend our dental services right across remote Australia and for the first time, we’ll be able to operate a national mental health outreach programme for those people who live and work in country Australia.
People who live in the bush see mental health professionals at only one-fifth the rate of those who live in the city. Mental illness is causing our medical and nursing staff extra workload at the moment. By your presence here today, we’ll be able to employ 40 to 50 extra mental health professionals to join our existing staff of 1500, who 24 hours a day, seven days a week, right around Australia, have remote Australia under care.
Prime Minister, your presence here today recognises the importance of living and working in country Australia, and ensuring that no matter where you live in this country, you can have the same access to health care as those that live in the city.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you Martin – and Michael, we’ve been very lucky to see phenomenal technology here today, haven’t we?
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
Well indeed and the telehealth services that we’ve seen here today are replicated in all the aeroplanes that the Royal Flying Doctor Service operates right throughout Australia.
This is a tremendous announcement today, $84 million. It’s not just the dollars, it’s the fact that it’s going to not only transform and change lives, this is actually going to save lives.
Just because you don’t live in the big cities doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have the same mental health care, the same dental health care as those people who do live in the urban areas. So for rural and remote Australians, this is a wonderful announcement. Well done Prime Minister, well done Mark Coulton, the Member for Parkes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, thank you very much and can I just say well done to the men and women of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. You’re dealing with some of the most challenging medical emergencies and healthcare environments in Australia. You’re doing so with great love and with great passion.
I think we should also give a shout out to all of the Australians who support the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Yes, the big bucks come from the Government, as it should, but $40 million, you were saying Martin, is being raised through charitable donations, philanthropic donations, donations large and small.
I want to encourage Australians to keep supporting the Royal Flying Doctor Service, it is one of the great, iconic Australian institutions, founded out of love, maintained out of love and we are so proud to be with you here today in Broken Hill.
Thank you very much.
[Applause]
So, do we have some questions?
JOURNALIST:
Yes, nine Indian nationals have been detained at Brisbane Airport allegedly for people smuggling…
PRIME MINISETR:
That’s a good question, but just hang on, do we have any questions about the $84 million additional funding in the Royal Flying Doctor Service, because we’ve got Martin and Greg here?
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible] holding an inquiry into the accessibility of mental health services in rural Australia, how does the funding the RFDS complement that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as Martin has just explained – I could ask Michael or Mark to elaborate on this – but as Martin has just explained, this is going to enable the employment of additional mental health nurses and psychologists by the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which of course provides medical care to over 330,000 people a year.
So this is a very substantial increase in mental health services being available in rural and remote Australia. Do you want to add to that Michael?
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:
Look, what it does do is it enables the Royal Flying Doctor Service to establish a health outreach clinic. So for doctors like Randall Greenberg and his dedicated team, it enables them to not only get on the ground and treat people who need the care the most, but also through the advances in technology which enable telehealth, to also be able to service those people from operating bases such as here in Broken Hill, which has been operating since 1937.
Now, thanks to this funding and thanks to philanthropic organisations and indeed private donors and indeed the hard work of the Country Women’s Auxiliaries, the Country Women’s Association, organisations and even events like the big ball that’s coming up, that I know Mark Coulton is going to attend and very much looking forward to – you might see him dance or sing or something.
But it’s those sorts of events, those sorts of generous people right throughout Australia, large and small donations, who enable these mental health outreach programmes to be able to be funded.
JOURNALIST:
Yes, so nine Indian nationals have been detained by Border Force officials at Brisbane Airport, allegedly for people smuggling. What do you know about this that you can tell us?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven’t had the opportunity yet, because I’ve been travelling, to speak to the Minister for Home Affairs, Peter Dutton. But I’ll be doing that shortly.
JOURNALIST:
What can you, could you give us a message about people smuggling?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, what I can tell you is that we keep our borders secure.
When the Labor Party was in government, they allowed our border protection to be outsourced to people smugglers. That’s a very sad fact. 50,000 unauthorized arrivals, 800 boats. 1,200 people at least died at sea.
What we have done is we have kept our borders secure. We are a generous and compassionate country when it comes to the humanitarian programme, we’re taking 18,000 plus people into Australia through the humanitarian programmes and that of course, in addition to that programme, there’s 12,000 refugees from the Syrian conflict zone. But the big difference between the Liberal National government that I lead and the Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, is that our government determines who comes to Australia. That is our job. That’s what the Australian people expect us to do. We are not going to allow our borders to be outsourced to people smugglers as Labor did. That’s the big difference.
JOURNALIST:
So how then did, the detainees, they’re claiming that they came here for the Commonwealth Games. How were they able to…
PRIME MINISTER:
I can’t comment any further on it, I’m sure the Minister will make a statement later today.
JOURNALIST:
Defence has also has revealed that an Australia airstrike was likely to have killed civilians in Mosul last year. What can you tell us about that and what’s your message to the families of the victims?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Australian Defence Force operates in the Middle East, the Air Force has been operating there to keep Australia safe, to destroy the Daesh/ISIL terrorist group that threatens us all over the world. To ensure that Iraq is free from the threat of this terrorist organisation. One big city after another, with the assistance of the ADF, has been liberated, including Mosul.
Now the ADF does everything it can to avoid civilian casualties, civilian casualties are always to be regretted. They take enormous care to avoid civilian casualties, but it is a warzone. What these terrorists do – cowards that they are – is that they choose to operate from within a civilian environment, from a town, from a house, from a mosque, from a city centre and they will do that in order to basically use civilians as a human shield.
So we recognise that and we do everything we can to avoid civilian casualties, but regrettably in a war zone casualties of this kind do occur.
JOURNALIST:
Malcolm, just getting away from international conflicts, when was the last time you came out to Broken Hill?
PRIME MINISTER:
I was out here, I think I was out here last when I was the Communications Minister as I recall. Yes, in fact, I was just talking to ABC Radio this morning before I left Canberra and one of the producers said that last time I was here I had helped fix a camera.
So I know there’s some tech gurus here, I’m sure they will be a lot handier than me. So if your cameras break down, I suggest you speak to the RFDS.
JOURNALIST:
What did you make of the Russian Ambassador’s performance?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think he will be applying for an Oscar, don’t you think? I mean, really, he didn’t persuade anybody.
It was a very lengthy performance and all of the histrionics aside, the fact of the matter is this: that chemical weapons were used in an attempt to murder a person, Mr Skripal and his daughter, on British soil, by the Russian government. That’s the reality.
Now this is a shocking breach of international law. It’s a shocking infringement of the sovereignty of the United Kingdom. That is why now nearly 30 countries around the world, in solidarity with the United Kingdom, have taken the action that we have, of expelling Russian diplomats. It’s vitally important that the world sends the strongest possible message to Moscow that we will not tolerate this type of unlawful conduct being perpetrated on the sovereign soil of other nations.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, we’ve got the Resources 2030 task force. Broken Hill obviously has a very strong mining history, albeit not in coal. How will it benefit Broken Hill and how do you respond to comments that it’s a PR campaign for polluters?
PRIME MINISTER:
The bottom line is that this is a mining town, or mining city I should say, the Silver City. Broken Hill has a lot to benefit from renewed and revived interest in our minerals resources.
JOURNALIST:
Will Australia make any efforts to contact the families of the victims that were killed in Mosul?
PRIME MINISTER:
In that very complex warzone, I don’t know whether that would be possible. But I just have to remind you that our Defence forces go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. It is very regrettable when they do occur but we have to remember that we are dealing with a ruthless and dangerous enemy, in Daesh or ISIL. These are terrorists that seek to kill Australians and have sought to kill Australians. They are a threat to the whole of the world. They operate in our region. We’ve seen plots inspired by ISIL here in Australia. Only a little while ago, we were able to disrupt a plot to blow up an A380 airliner. Hundreds of people would have died had that disruption not occurred. It’s a great credit to the determination, the professionalism, the courage of our Defence forces in the Middle East and around the world and our security intelligence services here at home, that we keep Australians safe from terrorism.
So thank you all very much and again congratulations to the Royal Flying Doctor Service, we are honoured to be here with you all today.
[Applause]
[ENDS]