Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Cancer Screening Register Bill 2016 and to support the amendments put forward by the member for Ballarat. I think Australians have a right to be a little bit concerned and a little bit worried about the way this particular bill was brought about. The National Cancer Screening Register Bill is a real example of why we should be concerned about Medicare and health and the way that this government goes about its business in this area. But let me be clear that we support the establishment of a national cancer screening register. It is really important that we have good register, a national register, and I make it clear that we support a national cancer register and also support the improvements to the cancer screening programs that the new register will support.

We know that cancer touches the lives of many Australians, not only those affected directly by cancer, but their families, their carers their loved ones and everyone who is connected to them. It is a major health problem in Australia today. According to the Cancer Council, at current rates it is expected that one in two Australian men and one in three Australian women will be diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85. An estimated 130,500 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in Australia this year. We know that cancer is the leading cause of death in Australia. More than 44,000 people died from cancer in 2013. It is a good thing that we live longer but one of the problems is that more people develop cancer in older ages. Around 19,000 more people die each year from cancer compared with 30 years ago.

So we clearly have a responsibility to do everything in our power to ensure that Australians have the best possible care, the best possible services and the best possible systems in place. That is why Labor supports steps that increase the efficiencies. The proposed register is meant to replace nine existing registers. It is good thing that we are coming up with one national register to replace nine different registers, including, for example, the national register for the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, and as many as eight state and territory registers for the National Cervical Screening Program.

The proposal has merit because it will reduce duplication and improve the prevention, identification and treatment of cancer in Australia. It is an excellent thing that a doctor or GP will have access to a patient's entire cancer screening history, regardless of whether they live in my electorate in South Australia or they have moved from one state to another or have been away for a while. It is an excellent thing that they will have this history.

A further reason for supporting this national register is the improvements that will flow to our cancer screening programs. For example, the National Cervical Screening Program will move from a two-yearly Pap test to a five-yearly cervical screening test. Not only does this implement one of the recommendations made by the independent Medical Services Advisory Committee, but it is also estimated that it will prevent an additional 140 cervical cancers per year. That is 140 lives that it will touch and benefit.

In addition, as a result of the national register, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program will transition to screening people every two years at a much faster rate than previously proposed. This means that Australians aged between 50 and 74 years will be screened every two years by 2020 instead of 2034, as previously proposed. The research and clinical trials tell us that this change could prevent an estimated 300 to 500 deaths per year, and that is a good thing.

All of these proposals make sense. They clearly improve screening and diagnosis and they make it easier for practitioners, GPs and those involved in the health system to do their job. But what we do not support is the outsourcing of this new register to a massive multinational for-profit corporation. That is what we do not like. Certainly, when I speak to people and tell them that the information in this register will be held by a multinational, they do not like it either.

So let's cast our minds back to the election campaign of 2016. On 26 May Fairfax Media broke a story that the government had awarded Telstra the contract to operate the national register. It was then revealed by AusTender that Telstra and the government had in fact signed the contract on 4 May. That is four days before the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, called the election. The government signed the contract for the operation of a national register despite the obvious fact that the necessary legislation to establish that national register—the legislation we are debating here today—had not yet passed.

What does that tell us? It is further proof that Australians have every right to be worried about such sneaky measures. Following the Fairfax story that broke regarding this contract, the Department of Health then issued a press release defending the contract. Was this a breach of the caretaker conventions? Who knows. If Australians have nothing to worry about, why the need to defend the contract? Why keep it a secret? So it is imperative that this parliament does its job and carefully scrutinises both the concept of a national register and also whether it should be operated by Telstra, a big, multinational, for-profit company. And there is a very long list of justified concerns. These have been echoed by many of my constituents and others in this place, as well as the shadow minister, the member for Ballarat, and they are clearly reflected in the damaging losses suffered by the coalition government at the last election when it came to health and Medicare.

For example, the new register is designed to hold extremely sensitive information about every Australian who is eligible for the cancer screening programs. This information will be held by a multinational, for-profit corporation. There have been many speeches made in this place and many inquiries into some of the practices and errors that are made by Telstra on a regular basis. This information will include people's personal details, names, addresses, contact details, dates of birth and gender. The information will also include the private health data, including an individual's Medicare number, Medicare claims information, preferred GP or other healthcare provider, HPV vaccination status, screening test results and cancer diagnosis. I have to tell you, I would not feel comfortable with Telstra or any multinational, private company holding that information about me, and I am sure many Australians would not feel comfortable about that either. We accept that this information is necessary for the operation of a register, but not with a massive multinational.

According to the government's own explanatory memorandum, Telstra will also be provided with very sensitive information, including whether a person has genetic markers that may lead to cancer, whether a woman has had a hysterectomy or partial hysterectomy or whether a person is transgender. But what are the implications of taking the step, unprecedented in Australia, of handing over such sensitive information to a for-profit, multinational company? Will Telstra be given access to even more information down the track that we will not be aware of or do not know about? As I said earlier, Telstra has a questionable record of privacy breaches. How will they protect, how will they safeguard, Australians' most private and most sensitive health information? Surely our voters, the Australian public, deserve to ask such questions and have them answered honestly.

What are the bigger implications of a contract of this size on our public healthcare system—a system that Australians are so rightly proud of? We have one of the best healthcare systems in the world. And what are Australians to make of this constant backtracking and denials by the government that are proven wrong? Let us not forget that at least 27 times during the election campaign the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said that he would never outsource Medicare. But isn't that exactly what these bills do—outsourcing to a for-profit multinational company? They put Australians' Medicare numbers and Medicare claims information in the hands of a multinational telecommunications corporation. If that is not outsourcing, I do not know what is.

So let us be clear: if we are not careful, this can open the floodgates to privatising our entire health system, and the government appears determined to do just that. For example, We know that the government spent $5 million trying to privatise the Medicare payments system. Now they want to pay Telstra to store Australians' most sensitive health data. The government's cuts to health care are an attack on our health system and continue to shift costs from Medicare to patients. This is privatisation by stealth.

For all these reasons, Labor proposed nine amendments to improve the government's legislation. After accusing Labor of a hysterical tirade, the government is now amending its own legislation. But there are three amendments that the government refuses to accept and that we will not give up on. Firstly—and I am sure the shadow minister will speak on these in detail—we are going to proceed with our amendment to limit the operation of the register to a not-for-profit organisation or government agency. This will address those risks of giving Australians' most sensitive health data to a telco corporation that has never managed a register like this. The existing cancer screening registers are managed by governments and not-for-profit organisations that have expertise in managing the registers. But Telstra has never operated a register like this. Is it sensible to be trialling something that has never been done with such sensitive data? That is the question. It is a worry, quite frankly, especially when we consider the types of data and information that they will be holding on the Australian public.

Today during question time we heard the government side talking about text messages about Medicare. Well, here is proof. This is absolute proof that we are privatising parts of our health system. When I look back over the past three years at the government's track record on health, all I can see is that on a number of occasions they tried to bring in a copayment and when that failed, because of the Senate, they then tried to bring it in through the back door through a freeze on doctors' payments. All these things play on the minds of the Australian public. No wonder they have absolutely no confidence in this government when it comes to health, when it comes to Medicare.

Again, seeing some of the most sensitive data that we have being given to a multinational telco company to run and to hold, is another example of the way we are heading with health.

All of us on this side want to support a national register for cancer, because we know it is a good thing. But we want that information to be secure. We want to ensure that the Australian public has confidence in whoever holds that information and we want to ensure that there will be no accidental release of information, as we have already seen with previous data that Telstra has held. I support this legislation, and certainly with the amendment the opposition has brought to this House.

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