Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House of the results contained in the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s latest report? In particular, Minister, I want to know what the report has to say about our rates of youth suicide. Also, Minister, what does it say about the health of Australians today?

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Batman is warned.

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

I certainly do thank the member for Bass for his question. I acknowledge that he has been long concerned about these issues, particularly the issue of youth suicide from his days as a schoolteacher in the Tasmanian system. We have had a landmark report released today by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, and it confirms the joint view of the premiers of the Labor states and the Prime Minister that Australia’s health system is amongst the best in the world. Certainly it is not flawless—the government is working with the states to address the problem of Indigenous ill health and the obesity epidemic—but it is a very good system by international standards.

I can report that at just over 80 years, Australians’ life expectancy is among the top five countries in the world. Cancer death rates have declined by 14 per cent since 1986; deaths from strokes have declined by 30 per cent since 1995; coronary heart disease deaths have declined by 40 per cent since 1995; and infant death rates have declined by almost 50 per cent since 1983. Importantly, for the member for Bass, the youth suicide rate has almost halved since it peaked in the mid-1990s, and suicide rates generally are at their lowest rate since records were first kept in 1907.

These good results did not happen by accident; they happened in part because this government has invested the money needed to make a good system even better. I think this government, on these figures, is entitled to say that it is the best friend that Medicare has ever had. By contrast, since 3 May, the Australian Labor Party has officially been a policy free zone when it comes to health. I looked at the website today and the nearest thing to a hard policy on health that I could find was a commitment to spend $5 million on food allergy research. That was the nearest thing to a hard policy I could find. I can tell the members opposite that this government spends more than that already through the National Health and Medical Research Council. Mr Speaker, let me just say this: if you have no policy on health, you have no hope of ever forming a government in this country.