Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I want to lend the support of the opposition to the work of the minister and send my condolences to the family and to friends of this young individual, this young Australian, whose life has been cut short at a very early stage. It is one of the most confounding issues for us as a country to deal with. There are members in this parliament who have close family members who have been affected by this disorder. It's a very clear message that, as a parliament, we should send to the government, the crossbench and everybody here that this is an issue we want to do whatever we can to further address.

When we were in government, there were 64 new Medicare items for eating disorders, as the minister pointed out, and patients can access up to 40 psychological and 20 diabetic services a year. If more needs to be done, more should be done, particularly in the research area, through the Medical Research Future Fund or other areas of endeavour that we could support in a bipartisan way, we would apply ourselves to that and provide full support to the government's efforts.

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