“INTEGRITY can’t be a perceived thing,” says Paul Woodhouse.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“It’s real. People either smell it or they don’t. And if they don’t smell it then good luck in trying to achieve anything for anyone without a core of good integrity.”
The North West Hospital and Health Service chairman sits in his office in the Mount Isa Hospital. The room does not have the decorations you might expect an executive board member to have. The room seems minimalistic. Functional, yet generic and almost as impersonal as the emergency room downstairs.
When asked if his views of integrity were learned growing up and managing Manfred Downs Station, 60 kilometres north of Julia Creek, Mr Woodhouse says; “It rests in most people. It came to me, I hope, from my family. My wife and grown up children show me their integrity every single day.”
Mr Woodhouse reluctantly agreed to an interview after suggesting there were better people to consider. We’re not convinced. Not only is he the chair of the service responsible for the region’s health, but he is also a grazier, and a CSIRO national land and water flagship member. He had also been the Regional Development Australia’s Townsville and North West Qld chairman for four years up until 2016, and was McKinlay Shire’s mayor for two terms.
“I don’t get too hung up on titles, someone has to call you something," Mr Woodhouse said. “The only thing that makes me feel important is I might have contributed something to a good meeting that’s happened and everyone has come to an agreement and we are really moving on.
“I don’t feel important...nobody recognises me when I sit on the deck of the Isa Hotel and that’s the way I like it.”
Mr Woodhouse tries to visit his friends in Julia Creek’s pubs as he did on Anzac Day. And if they sensed self-importance on him they would let him know. “If anyone is going to keep you grounded, they certainly will. In a fun way!”
He was born in Brisbane but his family has lived in the McKinlay Shire since 1917. Mr Woodhouse’s older brother was deaf and regional Queensland did not have the facilities to support him. So their family made the temporary shift to Brisbane so that he could receive an education.
When we point out to him that he has then known what it’s like for his family to move to the city for medical treatment from birth, he pauses. “I never really thought about it that way but I suppose you’re right.”
Mr Woodhouse moved back to the family property in time to study Year Four through correspondence, and after year six went to boarding school in Charters Towers. And he took on the roles that needed filling; from managing the tuck shop, to running the school’s sports store.