Emma Husar (Lindsay, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion put forward by the member for Leichhardt concerning World Tuberculosis Day, on Friday. I think the member for putting forward this incredibly important and comprehensive motion. As my colleagues the member for Newcastle has already pointed out, tuberculosis continues to be a major cause of illness, death and misery around the world. While TB has largely been well managed and kept at bay in Australia, we exist in a region that continues to struggle with this infectious disease. In fact, nearly two-thirds of all cases of TB diagnosed worldwide in 2015 were in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions, so our nearest and dearest neighbours are still very much suffering with this disease.

It is estimated that there are roughly one million people with TB in China and in Indonesia. In our region the total estimate sits at roughly 6,330,000 people affected across South-East Asia and the Western Pacific. As we all know, the disease can be easily managed; however, in poverty-stricken communities diagnosis and treatment can be extremely difficult and the disease's effect debilitating. Once TB has been contracted and if the body's immune system is unable to fight it off it typically attacks the lungs; however, it can affect a person's lymph nodes, bones, kidneys and the brain. TB is most deadly in communities that have poor access to health care and in people who have compromised immune systems—commonly, kids under five, older people and those with other illnesses.

As the motion correctly points out, Australians should be proud of the work we are doing to assist our neighbours to prevent and treat tuberculosis. It forms a large part of our Health for Development Strategy, which draws on close to half a billion dollars of our foreign aid budget to combat health threats across the world by increasing the capacities of our partner countries' health systems; improving sanitation, hygiene and nutrition; and investing in health research and development. When it comes to tuberculosis we know that some of the conventional medicines are no longer effective in resistant strains of the disease, causing additional problems and, in higher incidence areas, additional pressure on their health and hospital systems. So our support in funding medical research that aims to bring new medicines diagnostic tests to affected areas is crucial to managing the disease.

It perfectly illustrates the value of our foreign aid program. This money is being used to combat a terrible infectious disease right on our doorstep. It is leading to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of better outcomes in our region and across the world—across the world over time. It is a good example of how foreign aid spending keeps Australians safe. It is another reminder of the importance of medical research and more broadly the importance of backing in our scientific community and the invaluable work they do. Tuberculosis has only been managed as well as it has been in most regions of the world because government put faith in their medical researchers and their medical practitioners.

It is worth noting that even in this country it is something we need to continue to work on so that uninformed, misguided, ignorant and dangerous people cannot hijack good sense and the public debate in order to steer people away from preventative health medicine and good health. We have recently seen Senator Hanson of the One Nation party question the efficacy of preventative vaccines. We have seen her pedal the uneducated nonsense that vaccines might cause autism and the like. As the mother of a child with special needs—one on the autism spectrum—I find that assertion quite ugly, frankly, and also hazardous to our community. I am glad her uneducated ramblings were called out for what they were: factually incorrect and just dangerous. But these views are not isolated just to Senator Pauline Hanson and we have a lot of work to do to back in our scientific and medical research communities and ensure we are doing all we can to encourage and promote preventative health care.

The substantive issue of tuberculosis in the motion before us specifically mentions the important work we are doing in PNG. As I mentioned before, there are 33,000 cases of TB in Papua New Guinea alone—just on our doorstep. The Australian government is working very closely with the PNG government and the World Health Organization to develop new strategies to combat this disease, which is a particular burden on the PNG community. As the motion states, it is particularly important to acknowledge our global partners in this fight and thank them for their work in this space. I again support this motion and call on the government to provide continued funding for tuberculosis prevention and treatment in Papua New Guinea and continue funding for the development of improved diagnostics and medications to combat tuberculosis beyond 2017.

Debate adjourned.

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