Debates Day 3 - Thursday 21 October 2010
Parliamentary Record 15
Debates for 11th Assembly 2008 - 2012; ParliamentNT; Parliamentary Record; 11th Assembly 2008 - 2012
2010-10-21
Made available by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
English
Debates
Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
Darwin
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Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory
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DEBATES - Thursday 21 October 2010 Dave Malone works for the government. You need to be aware of that. I know it is a very lonely world on the smallest backbench of the smallest parliament in Australia. I want to be the first one to give you a hug on Give Dave a Hug Day. It will be a very special day. Being knifed in the back by the Leader of the Opposition was a very ugly thing you are a much more capable politician than he will ever be. He is a bit of a parasite, our Leader of the Opposition. He puts out this sheen of honesty Mr Giles interjecting. Mr KNIGHT: I am trying to support you here, member for Braitling. I know you are a supporter of the member for Fong Lim. Maybe, if you are lucky, we can have a Mr Giles: I know you have Chief Minister aspirations, member for Daly. Mr KNIGHT: We could have Give Adam a Hug Day. Adam needs a good hug now and again. Members interjecting. Mr KNIGHT: Kon is offering to give Adam a hug - he gets a little frustrated here. First it has to be Give a Dave a Hug Day, because he is very angry. His contribution had nothing to do with the economic future of the Northern Territory, through this marine supply base, which will set up the manufacturing industry in the Top End for decades to come. I congratulate the Chief Minister for bringing this statement to the House. Mr STYLES (Sanderson): Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, it feels like dj vu. I spoke in relation to the ministerial statement on Growing International Trade, and when one looks through it, taking advantage of our gas industry and marine supply base, much of the statement made earlier today is appropriate to this statement also. Any initiative the government takes in any direction to increase business in the Northern Territory is to be applauded. This marine supply base, provided they get it right, will add to the value of the Northern Territory in many different ways. First, you have to acknowledge there are many people working very hard on a daily basis to make this a reality. It is unfortunate those hard-working people are faced with many challenges on the road to making this a reality and, in fact, on the road to making the Northern Territory, especially the gas and other industries, a very prosperous reality in a short time. To attract people to anywhere in the world a number of things are needed. In fact, there are three pillars of any community you need to have in place before you can build anything else: health, education, and law and order. If you get those things right other things will follow with little effort. However, if you do not get them right you may not even get off the ground. The first thing is health. It is interesting talking to boards and executives of companies who come into the Northern Territory, want to come to the Northern Territory, or are looking at the Northern Territory. A number of things are needed if they are going to locate staff here because staff have families who all need services. Let us look at the health services. You need good ambulance services if people are injured, or kids are injured, the parent responsible for the young children knows they can get them to hospital and quickly. It is not a secret that the ambulance services, particularly in Darwin where this marine base will be located - the member for Daly said someone wanted one in Alice Springs, which is not appropriate. Perhaps he needs to look at a map and see Alice Springs is not that close to the ocean. However, this is a Darwin and Top End situation. Looking at health services, we know we have some very hard-working people in the ambulance service. We have excellent people working in the health system; however, we need to ensure those services are world-class. I suggest some of these services, through the inability of government to provide something for everyone, have issues which are raised quietly by people who are going to bring executives, workers and more staff to the Northern Territory. Look at where people will be living at Palmerston and the GP clinic. One hopes that will continue although it has been opened and closed before by successive Labor governments. Palmerston is losing GPs because of the super clinic - they are closing down. I hope the Palmerston super clinic remains open because if it closes, not only do you lose that, you have lost local GPs who have moved out of the area. Let us move to education. Any parent or anyone charged with the responsibility of raising children understands education is such an important factor in the personal development of children. We have to have programs; we have to have well-resourced schools, and infrastructure to support the increased numbers of people coming here. If people are to move to the Territory we need housing. We are in the greatest housing crisis ever and we want to increase our numbers substantially in a very short period of time. The sad thing is the land release and housing crisis will not disappear overnight - we will still be faced with shortages. 6531