Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

One of the great things about Australia is our cultural diversity. As Australians, we are welcoming people and we have benefited from generations of immigrants who have enriched our lives through their knowledge, skills and the values.

This past week Australia has revelled in the celebrations surrounding Chinese New Year and the beginning of the Year of the Sheep. Over the weekend I was honoured to host the first Chinese lunar new year festival in Kingsford Smith. We are blessed to have a strong and vibrant local Chinese community in my electorate who came along and shared their many talents and cultural highlights with members of our community.

One aspect of Chinese culture Australians have embraced is Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine has been used in Australia for more than 100 years, since the 1840s when the Australian goldfields first enticed Chinese people to Australia. Many Australians on a daily basis undertake and seek out Chinese medicinal therapies to cure all manner of ailments and ills. A classic example of Chinese medicine in our culture and our country is the widespread of acupuncture.

Chinese medicine has been utilised in China for more than 5,000 years. The challenge has been meeting these ancient Eastern medical practices with what we do in the West. The Labor Party has long been an enthusiastic advocate of Chinese medicine. In 2007, the then NSW Labor government helped facilitate the establishment of the National Institute for Complementary Medicine at the University of Western Sydney, providing $600,000 to accelerate the establishment of the institute.

The state Labor government supported the formation of a joint academic chair in traditional Chinese medicine between the University of Sydney and the University of Western Sydney, committing $800,000 over four years towards the chair, and also announcing the establishment of an Australia-China Centre for Research in Chinese Medicines. This is a joint collaboration between the University of Sydney and Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong, with the aim of undertaking research and development into traditional Chinese medicines for the growing complementary medicine market. As Australia looks to Asia and our Asian Pacific partnership to further our economic growth, the links that we can establish through Chinese medicine provide fertile ground for future endeavours and the relationship.

As mentioned in this motion, the Australian complementary medicine industry is worth over $3.8 billion and Australia is the first Western nation to nationally regulate Chinese medicine practitioners. Since July 2012, students and practitioners must be registered with the Chinese Medicine Board of Australia. The board also manages complaints and disciplinary processes and assesses practitioners trained overseas who wish to practise in Australia. Registered individuals must commit to maintaining and developing their skills, spending at least 20 hours a year in training, meeting a minimum English language requirement and having professional indemnity cover to the value of at least $5 million in liability. This oversight is vitally important to the Chinese medicine industry and to ensuring that Australians have ready and safe access to this unique international resource.

I acknowledge as part of the motion the important work being undertaken by the National Institute of Complementary Medicine and the role of the institute in cultivating investment, education and research opportunities in this exciting space. The complementary medicine sector has the potential to make significant advances on the burden of disease in Australia, particularly chronic disease, as well as boost our economy.

With the celebration of Chinese New Year, it is wonderful and appropriate for this parliament to pay tribute to the historical links between our two nations and, in particular, the wonderful link that Chinese medicine has provided in not only boosting both our economies but providing support for people-to-people links.

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