Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question concerning the 2010-11 Commonwealth budget specifically concerns the Rudd government’s $466.7 million commitment to e-health. I am sure that everyone in the House was witness to the support this decision received from the community. For many years, governments of both political persuasions have supported the concept of e-health. In fact, I was at a street corner meeting a couple of weeks ago in Huntfield Heights in which this issue was raised, and people at the meeting were a little bit confused because they did think that the Leader of the Opposition, previously the health minister, was in favour of e-health records. They certainly were in favour of it. So they were very confused about why the Leader of the Opposition has changed his tune.

I understand that the Leader of the Opposition staked his credibility as health minister on delivering an e-health system. This commitment, like so many others that he made in health, has been shown to be nothing more than hollow rhetoric. Certainly, that seems to be the take-away message that constituents in my electorate got. Can the minister please outline the benefits that e-health will bring to the health system and the potential risks of this irresponsible decision by the Liberal Party to scrap funding of this project?

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