Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hope to inject some fact into the debate. I know it has been quite emotive so far. There has also been criticism for the sin of omission. It is obviously very difficult to cover every sector of the health system in 10 minutes. The speaker who preceded me chose to focus on Canada. I can do nothing better than to present some comparisons between Australia and Canada. The OECD is a preferred source of this form of information. I know those on the other side of the chamber usually duck for cover and start scrounging around for a left-wing academic to quote every time they see an OECD report coming their way. That is true for the running of the economy; it is also true for the health reports.

I would like to start this debate by simply holding up an AIHW table that compares Australia’s health in the midst of the previous Labor government to Australia’s health in 2003. Approximately 30 indicators are listed. Of those, all but six have seen Australia move in the direction of performing better than its OECD counterparts. I will list some of those for you. For male life expectancy, Australia is ranked No. 2 in the world, behind Japan. For the indicators of male life expectancy from the age of 65, potential years of life lost, self-rated health levels, the incidence of HIV, children aged 12 with decayed, missing or filled teeth—I could list many more indicators—under the Howard government Australia has moved well up the list from being approximately in the middle or at the bottom of the top third; we have advanced significantly.

See this speech in context