Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Katie Woolf spoke with Health Minister Natasha Fyles

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Katie Woolf spoke with Health Minister Natasha Fyles · 360 with Katie Woolf

0:00
Speaker 1: Well, as you just heard from the Opposition leader Leofanocchiaro,
0:03
Speaker 1: she's calling for the Chief Minister to release the documents
0:06
Speaker 1: and information taken into that. Now. I think it's a
0:09
Speaker 1: infamous cabinet meeting which saw the approval of a twelve
0:12
Speaker 1: million dollar grandstand grant for the Turf Club.
0:15
Speaker 2: So this sagur is far from over.
0:17
Speaker 1: We extensively covered the release of that eleven page statement
0:20
Speaker 1: by the Turf Club chair Brett Dixon yesterday some pretty
0:24
Speaker 1: serious claims. Now he's launched legal action to overturn findings
0:28
Speaker 1: of the recent Ekak report. In that statement, he claims
0:32
Speaker 1: that the decision by the Chief Minister, Michael Gunner and
0:35
Speaker 1: his cabinet ministers to give the Darwin Turf Club twelve
0:38
Speaker 1: million dollars was made the same morning the club put
0:41
Speaker 1: forward its submission for funding support. So in that statement
0:46
Speaker 1: he said, I do not know what material Cabinet considered
0:49
Speaker 1: beyond the submission provided by the management of the club.
0:53
Speaker 1: The Minister for Racing, Gaming and Licensing, Natasha Files, joins
0:57
Speaker 1: me on the show right now.
0:58
Speaker 2: Good morning to your minister.
1:00
Speaker 3: Good morning Katie, good morning listening.
1:02
Speaker 1: Now, Minister, my understanding is that you and Minister Lawla
1:06
Speaker 1: have both confirmed that the Chief Minister took that submission
1:09
Speaker 1: into cabinet.
1:10
Speaker 2: Is that correct? Yes, Katie, Now have you read through
1:15
Speaker 2: the statement provided by Brett Dixon.
1:19
Speaker 3: So, Katie, I have read the statement that Brett Dixon
1:22
Speaker 3: circulated earlier this week to the media into a number
1:25
Speaker 3: of individuals. But Katie, let's just put this into a context.
1:28
Speaker 3: We have had an eighteen month investigation by the IKA,
1:31
Speaker 3: a very thorough investigation that has substantial powers, thousands of
1:35
Speaker 3: documents and a significant period of time, and they have
1:39
Speaker 3: made recommendations and they have made findings, but none of
1:42
Speaker 3: those have been against the Chief Minister or the cabinet.
1:45
Speaker 3: Of course, we have acknowledged the process and the process
1:48
Speaker 3: has changed since then. But the context in which this
1:51
Speaker 3: grant was awarded and the purpose for the grant we
1:54
Speaker 3: still support. It was the deceptive behavior from the turf
1:57
Speaker 3: Club board after that when we asked questions that we're
2:01
Speaker 3: concerned about. But we certainly in terms of the IICAC
2:05
Speaker 3: there is investig there is wasn't it thorough investigation, there's
2:08
Speaker 3: recommendations and we're working to put those in place.
2:10
Speaker 1: We've definitely covered off on the fact that the IKAC
2:13
Speaker 1: has not been able to look into the you know,
2:16
Speaker 1: the cabinet process. And in Brett Dixon's statement, he said,
2:21
Speaker 1: I do not know what material cabinet considered beyond the
2:24
Speaker 1: submission provided by the management of the club.
2:28
Speaker 2: What material did the cabinet consider?
2:32
Speaker 3: So a memo went to cabinet. Dublin's are elected to
2:35
Speaker 3: make the decisions, Katie.
2:37
Speaker 1: And in the court, Yeah, so what material though? Aside
2:41
Speaker 1: from a memo? What what went to cabinet?
2:45
Speaker 2: Was that all we.
2:47
Speaker 3: Had material that came to cabinet, Katie, a memo, a
2:50
Speaker 3: recommendation from the department that we should support this project.
2:53
Speaker 3: This was a project about jobs in construction and jobs
2:56
Speaker 3: into their future.
2:57
Speaker 2: So watch department. Which department was it?
3:02
Speaker 3: So, Katie, this was, as we know, to the Chief Minister,
3:06
Speaker 3: as you've just questioned, took this in as it was
3:08
Speaker 3: under his name. It was across several portfolios. But Katie,
3:11
Speaker 3: going to remember the context. Right at that time, we
3:14
Speaker 3: were trying to stimulate the economy. We needed projects that
3:17
Speaker 3: were ready to go. We needed to create jobs in
3:19
Speaker 3: construction to keep people here. We were in a huge
3:22
Speaker 3: slump following that post inpex construction phase Now, the economy
3:26
Speaker 3: has certainly turned and things have changed rapidly. But at
3:29
Speaker 3: that point, as a government, we looked at a number
3:31
Speaker 3: of projects and we approved a number of grants to
3:34
Speaker 3: get projects out the door to have jobs at that
3:36
Speaker 3: time and jobs into the future.
3:37
Speaker 1: But so you said, you did say there though, You
3:40
Speaker 1: did say there though that this was about creating jobs
3:43
Speaker 1: and getting the territory out of the slump that we
3:46
Speaker 1: were in. So was there a document from treasury? Was
3:50
Speaker 1: there supporting documentation from treasury?
3:53
Speaker 3: So, Katie, we had documents bought in, we had a memo,
3:57
Speaker 3: we had a recommendation from the department. This was a
4:00
Speaker 3: market led proposal, which, for your listeners, is when people
4:03
Speaker 3: have ideas or a concept, they bring that to government
4:05
Speaker 3: and it goes through a market led proposal. Obviously, there's
4:08
Speaker 3: some projects that government drives and government wants that project
4:12
Speaker 3: and they put that out to tender. But this is
4:14
Speaker 3: a way in which that other people can bring ideas
4:16
Speaker 3: to government. But we were focused on jobs at that point. Significantly,
4:20
Speaker 3: this went through process as Katie and cabinet is elected
4:23
Speaker 3: to make decisions.
4:24
Speaker 1: So taking that again into account, talking about the job's
4:28
Speaker 1: factor here, I would suspect that you know that the
4:31
Speaker 1: department that is best place to be able to say
4:33
Speaker 1: whether this is a job creating project or not would
4:36
Speaker 1: be Treasury.
4:37
Speaker 2: Was there supporting document from Treasury, So Katie.
4:41
Speaker 3: This was a market led proposal, which is a way
4:43
Speaker 3: in which government can engage with ideas and projects to
4:45
Speaker 3: get things out the doors. This went through the cabinet process,
4:48
Speaker 3: the cabinet decision was made. There is nothing more that
4:50
Speaker 3: I can say in that space. Governments are elected to
4:53
Speaker 3: make a decision. The cabinet made a decision and we
4:55
Speaker 3: still back that.
4:56
Speaker 1: So did Treasury recommend the approval of the Grand stad So.
5:01
Speaker 3: Katie, we have acknowledged cabinet didn't know that. The submission
5:04
Speaker 3: only came in hours before and the IKAK has some
5:07
Speaker 3: findings around that. We've changed cabinet process since then so
5:10
Speaker 3: that budget items only go in through the budget review
5:13
Speaker 3: process of their is sarenness. But Katie, at the time
5:16
Speaker 3: we agreed to a number of grants. We put a
5:19
Speaker 3: number of projects in place. You saw a number of
5:21
Speaker 3: infrastructure projects. Particularly there was infrastructure at Motorsport, infrastructure at
5:24
Speaker 3: the Turf Club, infrastructure at the Rugby League Stadium. So
5:27
Speaker 3: Katie this was in the context of creating jobs, and
5:31
Speaker 3: we had that information brought to us as a cabinet.
5:33
Speaker 3: We made a decision off that.
5:34
Speaker 1: So if it was a market lead proposal, would it
5:38
Speaker 1: have a Treasury document either saying that this should go
5:42
Speaker 1: forward or it shouldn't.
5:45
Speaker 3: So, Katie, in terms of a market led proposal, it's
5:47
Speaker 3: a way in which that government departments can engage on
5:50
Speaker 3: a project that keeps it hands off from a minister
5:53
Speaker 3: so that there's no interception. We then had those documents
5:56
Speaker 3: come to us as a cabinet. We didn't know at
6:00
Speaker 3: the time that those documents had only presented some hours before.
6:04
Speaker 3: But that process has changed since. But Katie, what we
6:07
Speaker 3: need to talk about is the Turf Club Grandstand was
6:10
Speaker 3: a grant awarded. We still backed out. We still think
6:13
Speaker 3: it created jobs in construction and jobs ongoing. We have
6:16
Speaker 3: changed processes around in which budget decisions are made going forward,
6:20
Speaker 3: we accept the ikak's recommendations in principle. The ye take
6:23
Speaker 3: of very Star investigations. Look, that made no findings against
6:26
Speaker 3: the Chief Minister or any cabin.
6:28
Speaker 1: There's no doubt that there are a couple of aspects
6:31
Speaker 1: I think to this situation and You're right, you know,
6:34
Speaker 1: definitely the process that was gone through by the Darwin
6:38
Speaker 1: Turf Club is something that needs to be continue to
6:41
Speaker 1: look at. But there is also the very real situation
6:45
Speaker 1: here that the Northern Territory government, our cabinet did not
6:51
Speaker 1: look into or did not actually do their homework before
6:56
Speaker 1: awarding a twelve billion dollar grant.
6:58
Speaker 2: And that's what I'm getting to. What I'm trying to
7:00
Speaker 2: ask you did agree with you was there?
7:03
Speaker 3: Did not know?
7:04
Speaker 2: Well, how did you not know?
7:05
Speaker 1: That's the whole thing that I'm trying to get to
7:07
Speaker 1: is how is there a twelve million dollar grant awarded?
7:11
Speaker 1: How does the Chief Minister walk in with a submission
7:14
Speaker 1: under his arm without doing his homework.
7:18
Speaker 3: But Katie, he did do his homework. The submission was
7:20
Speaker 3: the document that came to cabinet. What cabinet didn't know
7:23
Speaker 3: is that we had received some of those documents only
7:25
Speaker 3: hours before. So the Cabinet supported the project in the
7:29
Speaker 3: context of creating jobs. We had a submission presented to
7:32
Speaker 3: us and we made that decision looking to stimulate the
7:34
Speaker 3: economy for green light shovel ready projects.
7:37
Speaker 2: Would you, as a minister, had a very.
7:39
Speaker 3: Thorough investigation, Katie would you, as a minister in adequate?
7:43
Speaker 1: Would you, as a minister taking a submission under your
7:46
Speaker 1: arm that only came in that that documentation had only
7:50
Speaker 1: come in that morning.
7:52
Speaker 3: But the Chief Minister didn't know that, Katie.
7:53
Speaker 2: How did he not know that.
7:56
Speaker 3: Because he had a submission provided to him and he
7:58
Speaker 3: has to entrust that the worst because undertaken at a
8:01
Speaker 3: layer below that. Now we have sense change processes to
8:04
Speaker 3: make sure that these things are considered as a part
8:08
Speaker 3: of the budget cabinet process and missing sures that decisions
8:11
Speaker 3: are made in the broader context of the territory economy
8:14
Speaker 3: and the territory government budget.
8:16
Speaker 1: Are you concerned that these other decisions that have gone
8:19
Speaker 1: through the cabinet process then in which have not gone
8:22
Speaker 1: through you know, the adequate measures that people would expect.
8:27
Speaker 3: So, Katie, cabinet and government is elected to make decisions,
8:30
Speaker 3: and at that time particularly, we were trying to we
8:34
Speaker 3: were trying to get projects out the door. The context
8:37
Speaker 3: in which this decision was made is we'll coming to
8:39
Speaker 3: the end of the financial year. We had a significant
8:41
Speaker 3: infrastructure budget, the Northern Territory government infrastructure budget with what
8:45
Speaker 3: was keeping people in jobs and keeping people in the
8:47
Speaker 3: territory we had and projects always run over, they run short.
8:52
Speaker 3: We had budget infrastructure allocation that we needed to get
8:55
Speaker 3: out the door to meet those commitments. For the infrastructure budget.
8:58
Speaker 3: We had a number of projects and we warded grants
9:01
Speaker 3: because these were projects were ready to go immediately.
9:04
Speaker 1: So everybody in that cabinet room supported the decision.
9:08
Speaker 3: So, Katie, the Westminster system of cabinet and it's a
9:10
Speaker 3: difficult one and Leah would not understand this. I don't
9:12
Speaker 3: think she even ever had a cabinet meeting as a
9:14
Speaker 3: minister for a week. But cabinet is difficult. You have
9:16
Speaker 3: robust conversations and if you don't agree with the decision,
9:20
Speaker 3: you have to leave the cabinet. Now, this challenges you
9:22
Speaker 3: at times you have to put your personal views aside.
9:24
Speaker 3: But yes, everyone in that cabinet backs these decisions.
9:27
Speaker 1: So obviously you backed the Chief minister. Do you steal
9:30
Speaker 1: back the chief Minister?
9:32
Speaker 2: Yes, Katie is I mean why.
9:36
Speaker 1: Is everybody else in what Air at the moment or
9:38
Speaker 1: where are all the other all of the other ministers.
9:41
Speaker 3: So, Katie, we had a cabinet meeting out in what
9:43
Speaker 3: Air yesterday which was really successful. We were engaging with
9:46
Speaker 3: the community on a number of levels. Myself and Minister
9:49
Speaker 3: Warden have returned to Darwin. Minister Moss, as you know,
9:52
Speaker 3: had planned to attend that trip but she got caught
9:54
Speaker 3: in the quarantining in the South Australian hotspot, Whilest visiting
9:57
Speaker 3: family and I believe the other ministers are continuing onto
10:00
Speaker 3: some communities today. But it meant myself a Minister Warden
10:03
Speaker 3: never changed.
10:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had seen that on Facebook that Minister Moss
10:06
Speaker 1: was in Howard Springs, So why was she away?
10:09
Speaker 2: Was that for work related or personal business?
10:12
Speaker 3: Oh, Katie, this COVID situation panning on now eighteen months,
10:15
Speaker 3: it's caught so many people and people have got to
10:17
Speaker 3: make difficult decisions. She had some lead, that lead was
10:20
Speaker 3: already rescheduled and I understand it. It was personal visit
10:23
Speaker 3: to visit family. You know, these are difficult decisions. I've
10:27
Speaker 3: got children that haven't seen their grandparents in a significant
10:29
Speaker 3: period of time and she made that decision. She got
10:32
Speaker 3: caught in a hot spot, but she did the right thing.
10:34
Speaker 3: She bunkers down in South Australia and then she made
10:36
Speaker 3: the decision to return to the territory. She entered quarantine
10:39
Speaker 3: she's provided me with some updates and some inside information, Katie,
10:43
Speaker 3: but she I understand because of where she was, she's
10:45
Speaker 3: now been able to leave the facility all right.
10:47
Speaker 1: Now, it is being reported today that some of the
10:50
Speaker 1: darw And Turf Club board are planning to put their
10:52
Speaker 1: hand up for those board positions again.
10:55
Speaker 2: Do you think that they should?
10:58
Speaker 3: Catty? I think that we need to because of this
11:00
Speaker 3: report and the findings that have been made. We need
11:03
Speaker 3: to have confidence in that board going forward. The Turf Club,
11:06
Speaker 3: the third racing ant. The racing industry has amazing people involved,
11:10
Speaker 3: but we need to make sure that the Darwin Turf
11:12
Speaker 3: Club have, you know, people that have the best interest
11:15
Speaker 3: of racing and growing the industry at heart. And so
11:19
Speaker 3: we have made it clear that we want the current
11:21
Speaker 3: board to resign and then we would like to see
11:24
Speaker 3: new board members in their place.
11:26
Speaker 2: But so, are you okay?
11:27
Speaker 1: Do you think it's appropriate if some of those board
11:30
Speaker 1: members that were previously on the board when the Grandstand, well,
11:33
Speaker 1: when the whole lobbying process happened. Do you think that
11:37
Speaker 1: it's appropriate if they put their hand up again?
11:40
Speaker 3: It's o Katie. We need to have confidence in that
11:42
Speaker 3: board and I believe that this report has made findings
11:45
Speaker 3: against the number of people and they need to resign.
11:47
Speaker 1: All right, Brett Dixon is calling into questions some well
11:51
Speaker 1: leaks to some elements of the media. Then today it's
11:55
Speaker 1: been reported that an incomplete version of a text message
11:58
Speaker 1: sent by former NTUUS editor Williams to the Darwin Turf
12:01
Speaker 1: Club chairman Brett Dixon was included in a.
12:04
Speaker 2: Damning ICAQ report.
12:05
Speaker 1: As we know the damning ICAQ report, after the newspaper
12:09
Speaker 1: published a series of stories detailing allegations of misconduct within
12:13
Speaker 1: the iqaq's own office. The nt News reports that are
12:17
Speaker 1: draft reports sent to affected parties on May seven as
12:20
Speaker 1: part of the natural justice process, did not include any
12:23
Speaker 1: reference to the text message, but was included in the
12:26
Speaker 1: final report, which was then released on June twenty five.
12:30
Speaker 1: Are you concerned that the IKAK has misused their powers
12:33
Speaker 1: in any way?
12:35
Speaker 3: The Katie. The allegations that are being made are very serious.
12:39
Speaker 3: We're not suggesting that they are true, but I do
12:42
Speaker 3: believe that people need to have confidence and trust in
12:45
Speaker 3: the Northern Territories KAK so as I understand, these matters
12:48
Speaker 3: have been referred to the attention of the incoming IKAK.
12:52
Speaker 3: We want territories to have that confidence in that body,
12:55
Speaker 3: and so we believe that's the best step.
12:57
Speaker 1: So when is that review into the IKAQ going to
12:59
Speaker 1: be still made public?
13:02
Speaker 3: Katie? I would have to seek advice on that specific
13:04
Speaker 3: It's not within my ministerial portfolio. And that's a separate
13:07
Speaker 3: matter to what we were just talking about. Government has
13:09
Speaker 3: undertaken a review of the IQAQ Act and that's being
13:12
Speaker 3: undertaken by the former Chief Executive of the Department of Justice,
13:16
Speaker 3: someone who's been in the church of a very long time,
13:18
Speaker 3: Greg Shanahan. I'd be happy to check the timing around
13:20
Speaker 3: that for you.
13:21
Speaker 1: Do you think that there needs to be a full
13:23
Speaker 1: and public review, as the Opposition leader Leafanocchiaro is suggesting.
13:28
Speaker 3: I think that Lee's suggested that the Parliament should review
13:30
Speaker 3: the ICAC. Set's a very dangerous precedent. We must make
13:33
Speaker 3: sure the IQAQ is independent. We must make sure the
13:35
Speaker 3: IKAK has the trust of territories. So that's why we
13:39
Speaker 3: have these matters. We've referred them to the attention of
13:42
Speaker 3: the incoming icas that the matters that we were just
13:44
Speaker 3: talking about separate to that, because we have an IQAQ
13:47
Speaker 3: that's been in place for three or four years now.
13:50
Speaker 3: We've asked for a review of the legislation in which
13:52
Speaker 3: it acts under. So these are two separate issues, just
13:55
Speaker 3: to make that clear if you're.
13:56
Speaker 1: Listening, all right, Minnister, I do want to still cover
13:58
Speaker 1: off on the situation with COVID. We know that some
14:00
Speaker 1: of those hot spots have changed. Are you able to
14:02
Speaker 1: just give us a brief update, yeah, Katie.
14:06
Speaker 3: So we've seen very different situations down south. We've seen
14:10
Speaker 3: Victoria and South Australia get on top of their COVID outbreaks.
14:13
Speaker 3: South Australia with no cases. I haven't seen the figures
14:16
Speaker 3: this morning. Victoria have as clearly gotten on top of theirs.
14:19
Speaker 3: They've got some cases, but they've been in a large
14:22
Speaker 3: majority in isolation. What we're seeing across the border in
14:25
Speaker 3: this South Wales is a very different situation. We're seeing
14:27
Speaker 3: case numbers grow and we're seeing the percentage of those
14:30
Speaker 3: case numbers of people being infectious in the community also grow.
14:34
Speaker 3: It is seeping. It started in the eastern suburbs of Sydney,
14:37
Speaker 3: it's spread to the southwest and the west and it's
14:40
Speaker 3: now in other locations. So our Chief Health Officer provided
14:44
Speaker 3: the advice yesterday that we will declare the whole of
14:47
Speaker 3: New South Wales as a hot spot. We know that that,
14:50
Speaker 3: as I was just mentioning, has devastating impacts not only
14:52
Speaker 3: for family and friends, but also for tourism. But we
14:56
Speaker 3: have to keep the community safe so that we can
14:58
Speaker 3: be open and we can be going about our big
15:01
Speaker 3: without the risk of COVID coming in.
15:03
Speaker 1: Now, Minister We yesterday spoke to Allan, whose wife is
15:06
Speaker 1: in Howard Springs at the moment. She's just come back
15:08
Speaker 1: from Sydney where she had to have back surgery and
15:12
Speaker 1: has then been forced into quarantine. She has been trying
15:15
Speaker 1: to get an exemption. Take a listen to what Alan
15:17
Speaker 1: had to say yesterday. How has it been trying to
15:20
Speaker 1: sort of communicate the issue and talk to the government
15:23
Speaker 1: about this and the potential for an exemption.
15:25
Speaker 4: Well, Jiantes had some contact with them over the last
15:28
Speaker 4: couple of weeks when she applied for an exemption, but
15:31
Speaker 4: the communication has been pretty poor. It's always been Joe
15:37
Speaker 4: having to initiate. They said they'll get back to it.
15:40
Speaker 4: Really has been a pretty poor effort from the government
15:44
Speaker 4: in response to well that Department anyway, and response to
15:47
Speaker 4: communicating what's happening with the exemption. I think at the
15:50
Speaker 4: end of the day, the issue has been the government's
15:52
Speaker 4: inability to deal with my wife's health needs at the facility,
15:57
Speaker 4: and I still don't think they can complete that fleet.
16:00
Speaker 4: And the fact that we arrived in Darwin yesterday at
16:04
Speaker 4: the airport and they made Joe had made huge amounts
16:09
Speaker 4: of told them lots of stuff that they need to
16:13
Speaker 4: be aware of and how she needs to be supported,
16:17
Speaker 4: but there was nothing yesterday from my wife. Was just
16:21
Speaker 4: grueling pain after being on the plane for a little
16:28
Speaker 4: seven hours all up, and so I had to spend
16:31
Speaker 4: the next two to three hours dealing with being processed
16:33
Speaker 4: at the airport. And it's the same at the facility.
16:37
Speaker 4: There's no empathy here. Some of the people at the
16:40
Speaker 4: Howard Springs facility had done a great job and my
16:43
Speaker 4: wife's they had made that statement, But it comes back
16:47
Speaker 4: to the bureaucracy, the lack of communication between departments. Nobody
16:52
Speaker 4: knew Joeanne was going to need these the support at
16:58
Speaker 4: the airport nothing.
17:00
Speaker 1: Yes, you must be fairly disappointed, you know, to hear
17:03
Speaker 1: how upset he is with how his wife is going
17:07
Speaker 1: at the moment. I know that the family live on
17:09
Speaker 1: a twenty acre property. They say that they're not after
17:12
Speaker 1: special treatment, they just want to make sure that she's
17:14
Speaker 1: got the support she requires after that surgery. I know
17:18
Speaker 1: that there is a trial on in Alice Springs at
17:20
Speaker 1: the moment, people quarantining at home.
17:23
Speaker 2: Why not allow her that opportunity.
17:26
Speaker 3: Oh, Katie, my heart goes out to that family, and
17:28
Speaker 3: I am incredibly disappointed to hear those comments. I think
17:31
Speaker 3: that we have an amazing team out there who works
17:33
Speaker 3: very hard around the cloth. They stand up in different situations,
17:36
Speaker 3: but something has clearly gone wrong here. I am aware
17:39
Speaker 3: of this situation. It is an operational matter, but I
17:41
Speaker 3: have sought the advice of the department through the Chief Executive,
17:45
Speaker 3: and I will make it clear that I'm incredibly disappointed
17:47
Speaker 3: to hear that feedback, Katie. In terms of your comment
17:50
Speaker 3: around exemptions and alternative locations, that is a matter for
17:54
Speaker 3: the Chief Health officer. These are clinical matters. We can
17:57
Speaker 3: make them aware of it, but we cannot inter They
18:00
Speaker 3: are making decisions to keep territory in safe each and
18:02
Speaker 3: every day.
18:03
Speaker 1: Will you look into then, whether she has got the
18:06
Speaker 1: support that she requires out there following on from that,
18:09
Speaker 1: you know, fairly serious back surgery. In terms of just
18:12
Speaker 1: making sure that you know that she can do what
18:15
Speaker 1: she needs to do with that recovery.
18:17
Speaker 3: Yes, Katie, my office has already made contact with the
18:20
Speaker 3: agency and asked for an update on this situation and
18:23
Speaker 3: also to make sure that she has everything she needs.
18:26
Speaker 3: But also into the future, you know, how can we
18:30
Speaker 3: make sure that these processes do support these It's fairly
18:33
Speaker 3: you know, rare circumstances. I imagine it's just a couple
18:36
Speaker 3: of people from each fight, or just a handful at
18:38
Speaker 3: any one time who were caught up there. Because people
18:42
Speaker 3: are doing the right thing going into quarantine to protect
18:44
Speaker 3: our community, we should provide them with that support. So again,
18:47
Speaker 3: my thoughts to that family an operational matter, but I
18:50
Speaker 3: certainly will provide guidance to the department that I'm not
18:53
Speaker 3: happy with the comments.
18:54
Speaker 1: That I've heard, Minister, just very quickly, we're running out
18:56
Speaker 1: of time, but more vaccine, well more people able to
19:00
Speaker 1: access the vaccine as of later this week, is.
19:02
Speaker 3: It, Katie. Territorians are amazing. We're leading the nation and
19:06
Speaker 3: being vaccinated and that makes me very proud as a
19:08
Speaker 3: health minister, and I can only do that because Territorians
19:11
Speaker 3: are rolling up their sleeves. But from today, Katie, our
19:14
Speaker 3: my understanding is it's around midday, there'll be over three
19:17
Speaker 3: thousand appointments online for Greater Darwin. There's already fifteen hundred
19:20
Speaker 3: appointments online for Katherine. But Territorians have reached a new
19:24
Speaker 3: milestone with fifty thousand second doses admitted and that administered. Sorry,
19:28
Speaker 3: and that means that over twenty five actually getting close
19:31
Speaker 3: to twenty seven percent of the eligible population is vaccinated,
19:35
Speaker 3: fully vaccinated, and we're getting very close to fifty percent
19:38
Speaker 3: of the population in the territory having had a first dose.
19:42
Speaker 1: Minister, we will have to leave it there. Thank you
19:43
Speaker 1: very much for your time this morning. Thank you Minister
19:47
Speaker 1: for Health and Racing, Gaming and Licensing.
19:50
Speaker 2: Natasha Files