John Anderson (Gwydir, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister update the House on how the government is assisting Indigenous Australians to improve their health and wellbeing?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Gwydir for his question. I acknowledge his concerns and I pay tribute to the work that he has done with the Indigenous people of his electorate, particularly in conjunction with Dick Estens in Moree to improve their employment outcomes. The fact that Indigenous life expectancy remains about 20 years below that of the general community should trouble every member of this House, notwithstanding the significant improvements in Indigenous mortality achieved in the last few years. Although Indigenous ill health has many causes, better health services are certainly essential if things are to improve.

Since 1996, the Howard government has increased Indigenous-specific health spending from about $100 million to about $350 million a year. The recent budget committed an additional $137 million over the forward estimates period. In particular, the government will spend $40 million to get an additional 80 health professionals or their equivalents working with Aboriginal people in both Aboriginal and mainstream health services; it will spend $21 million training over 1,200 Aboriginal health workers to better recognise and deal with mental health problems; it will spend $20 million converting 130 part-time positions into full-time jobs with Indigenous health services; and, perhaps most importantly, it will spend an additional $55 million to combat the scourge of petrol sniffing in Central Australia and other remote settlements, which will mean targeting and removing petrol sniffers from affected communities and also extending the roll-out of the unsniffable OPAL petrol.

As members of this House on both sides would know, there is no panacea for these difficulties. It is, I regret to say, easy to spend money but not easy to get outcomes. However, this government certainly will not hesitate to invest in programs that it is confident will work.