Katie Allen (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday, the Joint Standing Committee on Trade and Investment Growth, of which I am a member, handed down the inquiry report Trade transformation: supporting Australia's export and investment opportunities. I want to acknowledge and thank the chair, George Christensen, the committee secretariat and the rest of the committee for the excellent work that went into this report.

The inquiry heard from witnesses across the full range of Australia's export industries. It reiterated that Australia is an export nation. In 2018-19 exports reached almost $470 billion, or 24 per cent of our GDP. It noted that while our resource exports remain strong, we have a growing opportunity to build on our service exports. Currently, these account for one-fifth of Australia's exports. We heard of Australia's strength in the higher education sector, which is our fourth-biggest export. We also heard of our emerging strengths in other services including health; professional and financial services, often called 'fintech'; and travel. However, it also identified a need for diversification.

The Export Council's submission described Australia's exports as 'too small' and 'too concentrated'. We export from a small number of businesses, sell a small number of commodities, and those sales are disproportionately geared for one market. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought home this issue. We need to rapidly open up export opportunities for a post-COVID global economy. In particular, the report recommended the government investigate ways of encouraging the growth of our non-resource sector. This was noted in recommendation No. 20, which recommends that health as an export, and in particular telehealth and clinical trials, presents a real opportunity for Australia. Recommendation No. 1 recommends the attractive construct of the Biomedical Translation Fund, and suggests this model for updating our trade and investment strategy.

The committee heard that international health is where education was 20 to 30 years ago. We are on the cusp of an exciting opportunity to take our health expertise to international markets through services such as telehealth, clinical trials, and medical education and training. In particular, recommendation No. 3 of the report identified significant bureaucratic barriers to increasing our clinical trials capability due to our federated healthcare system, and requirement to get state by state regulatory approval for multicentre trials. There is an urgency to deal with this issue so that Australia can take advantage of our low COVID environment.

There have been many pivots to grasp from the COVID crisis. One of the great developments to arise from the COVID pandemic has been the rapid expansion of telehealth services here in Australia. The expanded use of telehealth will undoubtedly be a feature of post-COVID health care here in Australia. It also has the potential to form part of a more diversified and digitally based post-COVID economy.

Telehealth was used to deliver convenient, cost-effective and real-time health care to people across the country, particularly for those located in regional, rural and remote areas. It guarantees that a patient from Tallangatta has the same access to quality health care as a patient from Toorak. Likewise, it means the metropolitan based patient doesn't have to wrestle with traffic congestion to get to a quick check-up across town. It has been critical to patient and doctor safety during the pandemic, and has helped protect our critical PPE supply. At its core, telehealth is about driving greater efficiency in healthcare delivery, which delivers on consumer productivity. Who wants to take off half a day to get a health check when you can now dial into your doctor from your desk at work?

Members of the government, including myself, have long been of the view that increasing our telehealth services is a valuable investment. The COVID-19 pandemic has streamlined this. The expansion of telehealth services that would have otherwise taken 10 years was, instead, achieved in just 10 days. The government introduced a $669 million whole-of-population telehealth primary healthcare program. This involved opening up telehealth and telephone Medicare Benefits Schedule items to all Australians, and doubling the bulk-billing incentive for GPs. More than nine million services have been provided to date.

Geographically, we are ideally placed to seize this opportunity. The cultural diversity of our medical profession is also well suited to the challenge of implementing international health. It is critical that in the post-COVID world that we look to ahead we should modernise our economy and play to our strengths. The rapid expansion of telehealth services has been a valuable asset for Australia, and could also be mutually beneficial for our friends in the Asia-Pacific region. Our health sector provides unique training opportunities. Australia is well positioned to become a world leader in health services export built on an excellent reputation and internationally recognised outcomes for health.

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