Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

First, let me make some comments in response to the member for Kingston’s comments and questions, and my colleague the Minister for Sport will be happy to take the question that has just been asked by the member for Macarthur. Labor are very pleased to have brought down this budget, which provides so much support for people with cancer. Interestingly, the member for Kingston has already identified the response that there is in the community to bowel cancer screening. It is not very often that we have such a successful preventative health measure, where we know that it works, we know how we can save people’s lives and we know that what is needed is the wheel to roll out the program and make it available to people who are of the ages at risk. I am happy to acknowledge that the previous government did the right thing by identifying this as a problem, but what they did not do was provide any ongoing funding for it.

For Labor to meet our election commitment to expand and extend testing to 50-year-olds and to ensure that we were building upon previous work and that this screening could continue, we had to find $87 million. That will put it on a stable footing for the next couple of years. Of course, we will then need to ultimately achieve the recommended standard for screening every two years of people aged over 50, and we will gradually be able to build up to that. We will save many lives and make a real difference in supporting the sort of research that really can turn around the way we provide health care in the community.

I also want to quickly comment on the discussions to date in terms of the $15 million contribution to a children’s cancer centre at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide. This will be a very important centre for young children and women in Adelaide who are cancer sufferers. It will mean there will be specialised facilities. They have not always been able to access the top-class facilities that they deserve, and we hope that our contribution will be used to assist the South Australian government in providing that.

To allow time for my ministerial colleague to have a chance to answer the member for Macarthur, I will just quickly flag for the member for Kingston that we are very pleased that discussions about the Noarlunga GP superclinic are going well. I understand that consultations are due to be held in the next five or six weeks. I am hoping that I will be able to be in your electorate for those consultations. We have committed up to $12.5 million to that project and the state government is going to meet an equivalent amount of funding. It is a really exciting opportunity for a community that desperately needs these services. I thank the member for raising these issues.

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