Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I'll try to answer as many of the issues raised as quickly as possible. In relation to the member for Bennelong, there is $230 million of additional funding for preventive health in sport. That includes a long-term $160 million Sporting Schools program, which will make a profound and continuing difference around the country. We have a $70 million infant- and maternal-health package. That's a very important thing and, hopefully, that will have the support of all members of this House. And there is a $125 million chronic disease health fund, under the Medical Research Future Fund, with a particular focus on cardiovascular and pulmonary issues and diabetes.

With regard to the issue of aged-care funding that was raised by the member for Franklin and, in passing, the member for Ballarat, yes, it is record funding, each year, every year: $21 billion, $21 billion, $22 billion and $23 billion. I am surprised that they feel this increase is in some way not an increase. It's a net increase of $5 billion over the forward estimates. For residential care, the figures go from 204,000 to 233,000 residential-care places. And for home care the figures go from 87,000 to 151,000 places. But this is a different practice, I admit, than that which was practised by the ALP when they were in government. I want to refer, for the first time, to the 2011-12 budget papers—I need to get a new hobby, rather than reading old budget papers! In that budget, under the health and aged-care section, we saw that, whereas we openly recognised that there was an underutilisation of some of the projected residential growth and transferred it to health care, the ALP took money out of residential and did not reapply it to home care. So they cut residential in the 2011-12 budget and did not reapply it. They said:

This measure will provide savings of $211.7 million over five years from 2010-11, due to the lower costs associated with delivering care at home.

The very thing that they accused of us—which we didn't do—is the very thing, according to their own budget papers, that they did. It was not just once but in 2010, 2011 and 2012. That's three consecutive budgets.

The next thing is in relation to mental health, and I respect the bipartisan nature of that. There was $338 million of additional funding delivered. I particularly want to note the points made by the member for Fisher on Veterans' Affairs. We see there was an additional $100 million of funding in this budget to continue reform of supports available to veterans, including mental-health treatment to reservists, with domestic or international disaster relief or border protection services or those involved in a serious service-related incident.

I want to acknowledge and address the questions around eating disorders. I had the privilege of being with the member for Fisher and the head of the Butterfly Foundation, who said—and I would gently point this out to the opposition—that this government has done more for eating disorders than any government. She made personal references on that front, and I was humbled and privileged to hear that. We have funded the Butterfly Foundation for their support of the ED helpline. We have worked with the InsideOut Institute at the Charles Perkins Institute on their support. Just last week we provided $3.2 million, through the Primary Health Network, for primary health funding. You asked about the time frame. Over a three-year period, that will see a 20-consultation and a 50-consultation program. It includes development and implementation of assessments with GPs, rollout of services and an evaluation period. All of those were actually announced last week—the very questions that have just been asked at this table. The information is publicly available, already announced. And it will include an evaluation.

In relation to suicide prevention, we worked with the different PHNs on the trial extension. I'm really pleased that we've been able to provide that extension.

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