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

It is unusual to interject when you are actually being quoted from and the member for Bradfield probably will want to hear this. He said in his book:

Equally importantly, there would be a continuing ferment of innovation. With multiple service providers able to deliver services over the new network, there would be new ideas emerging all the time, including many attractive choices which are not available today.

You can look at the National Information and Communications Technology report, where they say that the NBN will provide a unique opportunity to catalyse change in the way that health care is provided. In fact, they go so far as to say that we have the opportunity to use the NBN as a catalyst to jump-start Australia into a leading position in telehealth care. Why would you stand in the way of that? Listen to Steven Love, a pharmacist who is an NBN customer in Tasmania. He says:

The NBN will provide huge potential for lots of new applications, especially in health, which are of an interest to me being a pharmacist.

It is time for the opposition to listen to the community instead of continuing to campaign, as they did in the election, to scrap e-health, to close GP superclinics and to not support GP after-hours services. The benefits and potential of health care being delivered through the National Broadband Network are enormous and it is about time the opposition started to listen to the community.

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