Subjects: NT Administrator, Darwin Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, Central Australia Flooding, Conflict in the Middle East, travel advice.
KATIE WOOLF, HOST: Now, there is an awful lot happening around the Northern Territory. We know that in some really good news, a provider has indeed been selected to run the new Darwin Medicare Urgent Care Clinic with FCD Health Limited to operate the facility at 8 Osgood Drive in Eaton. So, it is some good news. But look, before we get to that with the Senator for the Northern Territory, Malarndirri McCarthy, she joins me on the line right now, good morning to you, Senator.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY, MINISTER FOR INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS: Good morning, Katie, and hello to all your listeners.
KATIE WOOLF: Now, thank you so much for your time this morning. I know that you're absolutely under the pump, of course, with Parliament.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Well, yeah, the Senate's well and truly underway and I thought this might be a window to try and get out and speak to you and your listeners.
KATIE WOOLF: Well, I appreciate it. Now, Minister, before I get to the Urgent Care Clinic, we had the incoming Administrator, David Connolly, on the show a bit earlier this morning for a pretty quick interview, where I certainly asked him about some of those tweets, I asked about some of what's been said before. I don't know if you've had the chance to have a look at the transcript or hear much of that, but what do you think of the situation that we're in?
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Oh, look, I think it's important if the Administrator did come on and speak with you, Katie, I'd imagine that's possibly the first media interview that he's done. I don't recall actually seeing any media coverage of him, so I'll be interested to know the full length of that interview and I certainly would like to have a good look at the transcript. I'm not sure what he went into, but I would certainly say that it is important that all of those groups that have felt deeply, deeply concerned about previous social media commentary and unfortunately, perhaps even more social commentary that might come forward in days and months to come, but he certainly needs to engage with them.
KATIE WOOLF: Yeah, look, I agree. He said he's committed to sitting down with all the various groups and trying to unite the Territory. I've got to say though, with some of the responses, I didn't feel like there was a huge amount of remorse for some of those messages. But look, I'll let you have a listen to that interview and sort of have a read of it for yourself. But I asked him as well whether any groups had sort of said that they weren't going to take him on as patron, he said, not at this stage.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Well, that's curious. There were a few organisations that I had heard that were thinking very carefully about whether they would go ahead, but it'll be interesting to see what the coming weeks brings. I think where my concern initially goes to as well though, Katie, is the role of the Parliament in the Northern Territory and the ability for parliamentary members of the Northern Territory assembly to be able to debate and speak about the role of the Administrator. And it is concerning, from what has taken place in the Northern Territory assembly that there is no ability to discuss or debate and I do think that is a real concern for democracy. The Northern Territory people elect their representatives into the Northern Territory assembly, whether they're in the CLP government or whether they're in opposition or on the crossbench, and they should be able to debate and have healthy debates.
KATIE WOOLF: Yeah, I totally agree. Minister, I want to ask you about this, in some good news, we know that a provider's been selected to run the new Darwin Medicare Urgent Care Clinic. So, FCD Health, I believe, is what they're called.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: That's correct and they're the current operators of the Palmerston GP Super Clinic, Katie. So, they've been identified as the successful provider and once they do open the facility at 8 Osgood Drive, which is a terrific location, and I'm getting lots of incoming from Darwin residents about how pleased they are about that particular location. So, that's a relief for me and for Luke Gosling. We're very pleased to get that kind of feedback, but this will be quite exciting when they do open it up.
KATIE WOOLF: Now, tell me, how soon do you reckon it's going to open? How soon are we anticipating that'll be?
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Look, it should be in the next couple of months, Katie. There clearly now has to be the opportunity to set it up, to get the staffing on board, to really resource it and basically get themselves ready to receive patients, and that should be in the next couple of months. What we were able to announce over the weekend was who the successful provider is and they're very pleased. So, I think those questions might pretty much go to them now as to how long it will take them, but I'd like to see them up as soon as we can. I know the Darwin families need to see it open. We've already had presentations to the existing Urgent Care Clinic and the ones across the Northern Territory, eight around community. So, over 100,000 presentations to our Urgent Care Clinics. So, it really goes a long way to assisting reducing patients to our hospitals in the NT.
KATIE WOOLF: Now, like you said, obviously we hope that it's going to have an impact on our major hospitals, particularly Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospital. How soon do you reckon we'll be able to tell what kind of impact it's going to have? I guess it's how long's a piece of string when it needs to open? But obviously anticipating it will have a big drop.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Yeah, I think you'll see it quite soon, Katie. I mean, I get good feedback around the Palmerston Urgent Care Clinic especially from the rural area and rural families and in the Palmerston region, the fact that they can just go there and not have to make their way to RDH and so we got that fairly well pretty quickly and a lot of it yeah was anecdotal, but that's important, people reach out to my office, they reach out to Luke's and Marion’s, so we know fairly well from families just from their interaction with us, and I think you'll find with the Osgood one at Eaton, we will know quite soon just the impact that's having, but also from FCD themselves because they'll know with the walk-ins.
KATIE WOOLF: Now, before I let you go this morning, we know that we're keeping an eye on sort of four tropical lows that are in the region throughout this week, but an emergency situation was declared over the weekend, certainly for Central Australia and keeping a real eye on this weather Malarndirri, what are people telling you?
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Absolutely. Look families are reaching out to me, especially around Central Australia, but I'm also in touch with Tangentyere in terms of their responsibility with the town camps around Alice Springs. Everyone's on alert. I do see that Secure NT has opened up facilities in Alice Springs which is, may I say a first. I certainly can't recall having emergency shelters opened in Alice, so it will be important for families to know that they have that ready should they need it, but also the Barkly region Katie, this is just phenomenal weather, really is.
KATIE WOOLF: It is. It's pretty wild and even up here in the Top End we're all sort of, we're all keeping an eye on everything that's happening. I can't remember the last time we had a wet season like this.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: No, same. Whilst it's beautiful just sitting out with my family on the weekend or if you're at the footy watching the footy, it might be a bit different for the footballers on the oval and I'm looking forward to seeing the Tiges go through to the grand final, fingers crossed, the women’s and men’s, so that's good but we'll just see what's going to happen. I have to keep an eye on it. I've said to my husband and my family, let me know if you see something coming closer to Darwin because we'll certainly want to get home. But can I, Katie, just while I'm on your program, if I may just, I know we've got a large Iranian constituency in Darwin and I just wanted to reach out to them and just say we're certainly thinking of them and their families, and I just want to also say to people that the Federal Government has upgraded our travel advice to do not travel for Israel, Lebanon, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. I know we've got a lot of travellers who do travel in that region, so I just wanted to spend this time to say it on your show.
KATIE WOOLF: Look, it's a frightening situation or certainly a really uncertain time, I think, at the moment in the Middle East, but for so many people around the world and just all round difficult, I would say, if you're planning on even going to Europe or anywhere at this point in time.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Absolutely. Please check your travel advice. You can see that the airports in Sydney and Melbourne and other places just in our country, we have travellers who just are sleeping at the airport, whilst they're trying to work out their international travel. I'm just saying to Northern Territory residents, please just have a good look at your travel if you are thinking of travelling overseas.
KATIE WOOLF: Malarndirri, really quickly. I know that the government has declared that it's got no intention of getting involved in the Middle East conflict, but the door has been left open a little bit as to whether we would assist if asked by the United States. The Defence Minister Richard Marles telling Sky News that Australia has not been approached at this point in time. So, I guess it sounds as though we're there waiting to see or ask, I guess, see what the US asks of us.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: Katie, this is a really serious situation that is occurring in Iran. Our first priority is Australians who are stuck, not just in Iran, but overseas in the Middle East. Senator Wong has spoken about 115,000 Australians, our priority is to make sure they're safe or that they can return home and that's what we're focused on.
KATIE WOOLF: Senator Malarndirri McCarthy, also Minister for Indigenous Australians. We always appreciate your time. Thank you for fitting us in, I know you’re busy.
MALARNDIRRI MCCARTHY: My pleasure. Thanks Katie.
KATIE WOOLF: Thanks so much. Bye now.