Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise to speak in support of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. This is certainly a step forward in the Rudd government’s commitment to health and hospital reform throughout this country. It is more than just a step forward; it is a historic step. It is the first time in this country that we will have a dedicated organisation to help combat the complex challenges of preventable, chronic disease. This bill establishes the Australian National Preventative Health Agency, an agency to support the Australian Health Ministers Conference and, through the ministerial conference, the Council of Australian Governments in addressing the increasingly complex challenges associated with preventing chronic disease in our community.

This agency will be established under the auspices of the National Partnership Agreement on Preventative Health, which was announced through COAG in 2008. It is through this national partnership that the government has already committed to providing $872.1 million over six years for a range of initiatives targeting the lifestyle risk factors of chronic disease. These include settings based interventions in our preschools, our schools, our workplaces and our communities to support behavioural changes in the social context of everyday lives. These will focus on poor nutrition, physical inactivity, smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, including binge drinking. It will also address social marketing aimed at obesity, tobacco and enabling infrastructure to monitor and evaluate progress made by these interventions, including the Australian National Preventative Health Agency.

This new agency will have a very important role in providing evidence based advice and national leadership and stewardship through data collection in order to ensure that we improve the availability and comparability of evidence. It is important that we have this national coordination in providing evidence based advice to the minister and the government as a whole as they try to tackle this issue that we face in relation to chronic disease. The agency will also support behavioural change through education or promotion and community awareness programs relating to preventative health. I will talk in more detail shortly about how important those educational and promotional activities are in the community and how important it is to lift awareness and education. This agency will also have a role in supporting and facilitating partnerships with relevant groups; and promulgating national standards and codes to guide preventative health initiatives, interventions and activities. Of the total cost of the measures enabled under this bill, $133.2 million over four years, $102 million is allocated to national-level social marketing campaigns targeting obesity and smoking. Another $13.1 million will go to a preventative health research fund.

Any focus on preventative health is welcome not just at the government level but by our health professionals in our local communities. In my electorate, local GPs, physicians and allied health professionals have been calling for a national focus on preventative health and for funding commitments to reflect this focus. I am excited at the acknowledgement of the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon. Nicola Roxon, that preventative health is a policy area that the government has given the highest priority. We all know that by focusing on preventative health significant benefits can be achieved. Those savings, of course, are not limited to financial savings. By working towards a healthy nation we will help improve people’s quality of life, the quality of life of their families and their ability to productively be part of society and to relieve the burden on the social services in our communities that deal with chronic disease. As the saying goes, prevention is certainly better than the cure.

This brings me to some of the more commonly known preventable chronic diseases. Prevention has been defined by the World Health Organisation as:

… approaches and activities aimed at reducing the likelihood that a disease or disorder will affect an individual, interrupting or slowing the progress of the disorder or reducing disability.

Early intervention and treatment can result in complete recovery, remission or a long and improved quality of life than otherwise would have occurred if preventative measures had not been taken.

There are a number of common preventable chronic diseases, and some wonderful initiatives that have already been undertaken in our local communities, in our states and across the country. Diabetes is one example. In Petrie alone there are 4,791 people with type 2 diabetes. Of all of the people with diabetes in my electorate, 84.41 per cent of those people are type 2. This is above the national average. There are 1,657 people in Petrie with diabetes who need insulin. Type 2 diabetes affects 85 to 90 per cent of all people with diabetes. While it usually affects mature adults, more and more young people, even children, are getting type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a lifestyle disease and is strongly associated with high blood pressure, high cholesterol and extra weight around the waist. Across the globe the statistics are even more daunting: every 10 seconds a person dies from a diabetes related cause, every 10 seconds two people develop diabetes, every year a further seven million people develop diabetes. Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of global death by disease.

I mentioned earlier that there are some preventative measures that are already being taken by governments and organisations both nationally and globally to tackle these diseases. World Diabetes Day is celebrated worldwide and is coming up on 14 November. It involves more than 160 countries. Millions of people are engaged to take part in diabetes advocacy and awareness. This year, 2009, is the beginning of a five-year campaign to address the growing need for diabetes education and preventative programs. The campaign slogan is ‘understand diabetes, take control’. World Diabetes Day is also a major fundraiser for Diabetes Australia Queensland, and helps raise awareness about diabetes. Funds are used to educate the public about the risks associated with diabetes and to support people, families and carers living with diabetes.

Diabetes associations and Diabetes Australia have established a website. I attended the launch last year. This new website allows individuals to not only gain information about what are the risks associated with diabetes and what can be done to avoid getting diabetes but also gain more education about type 2 and type 1 diabetes and what are the types of treatment. It also provides an amazing tool for individuals who have diabetes, where they can put in their local suburb or postcode and it will come up with a map, a bit like a Google map, which identifies medical providers and pharmacists in the area who provide the equipment that they need. This is a great new tool to help people manage their condition. Prevention is not just about stopping the disease occurring in the first place; once someone has the disease, it is about managing the disease in a better way so that those people have a better quality of life overall.

Heart disease is another chronic disease that is preventable, yet many Australians are still quite ignorant about the risks that they face. Cardiovascular disease is heart, stroke and blood vessel disease. It kills one Australian nearly every 10 minutes. It affects more than 3.7 million Australians. It prevents 1.4 million people from living a full life because of disability caused by the disease. Cardiovascular disease affects one in five Australians and affects two out of three families. It has claimed the lives of almost 46,000 Australians—34 per cent of all deaths in 2006—despite the disease being largely preventable. Females are particularly at risk of this disease and I think we are quite ignorant of that fact. Madam Deputy Speaker, I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage.

Leave granted.

Debate adjourned.

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