ANIKA WELLS MP
MINISTER FOR AGED CARE
MINISTER FOR SPORT

TRANSCRIPT - SKY NEWS - 11 APRIL 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS
FRIDAY, 11 APRIL 2025

SUBJECTS: $60 Million for Aged Care Facility in Darwin; Port of Darwin; AFP Security; IVF.

PETER STEFANOVIC, CO-HOST: Let's bring in the Aged Care Minister, Anika Wells. So, just elaborate on what you want to achieve here today in the NT Anika.

ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND SPORT: Good morning. Thank you so much. We're delivering in health and aged care for the NT who have unique challenges delivering high quality care for older Territorians. As the Aged Care Minister, I think it's my fourth trip here to the Top End. The last time I was here I met with Jan, who runs Pearl Supported Care. She said she had a waitlist of 100 people there, waiting for a residential aged care bed. That's not unique, that exists across the country, that there are bed shortages, but it's particularly acute here in the NT. They have the least aged care beds in the country. We've come back today to announce $60 million that will build 120 new residential aged care beds here in the territory. That's on top of the $10 million for the new CareFlight plane and $130 million uplift for the NT hospitals here, a new Medicare Mental Health Clinic and a new Medicare Urgent Care Clinic all here for the NT.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, this is a heck of a topic change here, and it's a question for the Prime Minister. But will your government commit to the sale of the Port of Darwin if you win this election just while you're up there?

WELLS: You would have seen the discussion around this, I think it was last week, wasn't it? A day is a week in, the campaign. We have been against this from the start; we were against it when Peter Dutton was in the Cabinet that made the decision to sell it in the first place; we are now working through the process that would allow us to do that.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, just a couple of other issues this morning, Minister. I just want to first of all, get your response to this terrible allegation that Peter Dutton was the target of a possible terror attack. It was before the children's court. There are obvious restrictions in reporting, but it's troubling. What can you say about it?

WELLS: Like you say, the only the reason that we all, as members of the public know that today is because it's gone through the courts. There is very little that we can say. But I would point you to the discussion that was had in Estimates earlier, when AFP was before Estimates about the significant uptick in threats against politicians. That's certainly the case, we feel that locally, and we trust the AFP to continue to do their good work to keep us safe.

STEFANOVIC: Have you felt that personally as well, just more broadly?

WELLS: Yes - we've gotten threats to my office and my team manages that with the AFP. Unfortunately, it's part and parcel of what you sign up to as a politician. I wouldn't want it to stop me going out and doing all the things that I do with my constituents, like mobile offices. Sometimes we have to do them with the AFP, and that's the way that I manage it. Obviously, sometimes there are far more significant cases, and we thank the AFP for doing that work and keeping us safe.

STEFANOVIC: Okay. And Minister, because you're in the health space as well and you're a mum as well, can I get your reaction to this terrible story of this IVF bungle? A mum has given birth to a stranger's child by accident. I can't imagine how she feels. How would you respond to this?

WELLS: Unimaginable is the right word. But it is a terrible reality befalling two families today. This shouldn't happen. The fact that you, the fertility struggles that you have to get to that point where you are on an IVF journey. These families have been through so much already and now they have all kinds of questions to navigate through and our heart goes out to them. The states do regulate this area, but it shouldn't happen.

STEFANOVIC: No, and you're right, it just raises so many questions to the company, to the families involved. I mean, what do you think the company now needs to do as a matter of priority?

WELLS: They're going to have to work with the families about next steps because, just reading about it, I think there's a number of embryos still left, and obviously there's now a child that exists in the world, and the child didn't ask for any of this to be the circumstances in which they navigate their early years of life. I think there's those questions to navigate for the families and then also for the state to regulate with the clinic, what has gone wrong here.

STEFANOVIC: Yeah. Okay. Anika Wells, thanks for your time this morning. We'll chat again soon.

ENDS