Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am happy to provide more detailed information as to how all facets of the health system will have greater usage of the e-health systems and to what it needs. Yes, it does relate to the bill because we are providing more services to people who will be using e-health services. Certainly the extra 1,000 nurses we have trained and the extra 5½ thousand doctors we have trained will all be able to provide better services because of the e-health records that exist right throughout our health system, and we are making sure we have more people trained to use them. Our extra 44 specialist breast cancer nurses will be accessing e-health records for their patient care, whether it be in a community health setting or in GP clinics. Those people will be using e-health services in our hospitals as well. We have increased hospital funding by 50 per cent, and it will be in those hospitals that they will be accessing e-health services. Some of the people in the extra 1,300 federally funded hospital beds will be accessing e-health services as well, and people in the extra 13,000 residential aged-care beds that the federal Labor government has provided can access e-health services as well. These e-health services relate to all the things this federal Labor government has done to improve health and hospital services.

Right across the country we have been improving services, whether they be in hospital settings or in community health settings. Of course this is all very different to what the opposition did when they were in government. What did the Leader of the Opposition do when he was health minister? He cut $1 billion from our healthcare system. That is how he views, and how much he values, health care—he cut $1 billion from it.

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