Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In continuation of my support for the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009, prior to the adjournment yesterday I was taking the House to some of the more commonly known preventable chronic diseases, one of these being cardiovascular disease. I should clarify that, although the diseases I refer to are certainly known, it should not be taken as meaning that many Australians are fully aware that they are in fact specifically at risk themselves. Cardiovascular disease is a prime example. Women in Australia generally think of men being particularly vulnerable to this disease. However, as I learned when attending the Go Red for Women campaign launched by the Heart Foundation in June 2009, women are at significant risk. The Go Red for Women campaign is about lifting awareness amongst women that cardiovascular disease is the greatest killer of women in Australia. In 2007, heart disease accounted for four times the number of deaths in women than that of breast cancer. Women think that their husbands, their partners and their fathers are the ones at risk. We worry about them not eating properly and not exercising enough. We certainly do not consider ourselves at the same risk. If we are to prevent the death of women in Australia from cardiovascular disease, we must do much more to educate women on the risks to them.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge another great campaign of the Heart Foundation—Jump Rope for Heart. This is a skipping competition that has been running since 1983 in our schools. I personally attended St Paul’s School at Bald Hills in my electorate to witness their Jump Rope for Heart event. My own children have also participated in this event at their school.

Of course, too many people have been touched by another insidious disease—cancer. If we have not personally been affected, we generally know someone who has—either a family member, friend or work colleague. Many lives have been saved because of early detection of cancers. The education of women to get regular checkups for cervical cancer and for breast cancer has improved the chances of a woman diagnosed with cancer being able to live a long and healthy life. Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the ‘Pink Bits’ calendar. This calendar contains beautiful photos of the ladies from the Redcliffe Pink Snapdragons posing with some very attractive men. The Redcliffe Pink Snapdragons is a dragon boat club and the Redcliffe Pink Snapdragons membership is made up of ladies who have gone through or are still going through breast cancer. Proceeds of the calendar will go towards the ‘pink ladies’ going to Canada in June 2010 for the International Participatory Breast Cancer Dragon Boat Festival. I recommend to anyone wanting to support the team by donating money or purchasing a calendar to look up their website or contact my office. These women are truly remarkable and are a shining example of why we must continue to fight this disease and engage in preventative measures to diagnose breast cancer early. The Snapdragons have recently participated in our local Cancer Council’s Relay For Life, another fantastic event that goes on around this country. I know the member for Forde certainly recently participated in his own local Relay For Life.

For the second year, my team, the Petrie Possums, entered the Redcliffe Relay for Life. Most of the teams stayed for the entire 18 hours, camping overnight, with some of us, like myself, getting about one hour’s sleep. Not only did members of the local community come and support my team by walking with us; I had my children join us again for the second year. I think it is important that our children get to engage with our community on these issues because many children’s lives are also touched by cancer.

This was a great opportunity for local organisations to support the event. I know I had support from Redcliffe Leagues Club, Polyworld, Ballycara Retirement Village, Belvedere Hotel, Reality Cruises and The Ox Restaurant. Helen-Maree Butler, one of my team members, personally raised $660 and came along and participated in the event with her daughters. Overall, our team was the highest fundraiser, raising $6,221 for the Cancer Council.

Recently, a young boy from Bracken Ridge State High School in my electorate, 13-year-old Jaz Jorgensen, took the initiative of walking the old Hornibrook Bridge, which is over 2.2 kilometres, 20 times to raise money for breast cancer. His grandmother was diagnosed last year. We started at 5.00 in the morning and did the first couple of laps with Jaz and his mum. He raised over $2,000. These are just some of the amazing local people and events that are supporting awareness and education, and are fundraising for chronic disease in my local area.

As I have already noted, much work has been undertaken to lift awareness in the aim of preventing diseases such as cervical cancer, skin cancer and prostate cancer. Women now regularly ensure that they get check-ups. The problem is that there are other diseases, such as prostate cancer, where we have not come far enough. Men are still not getting regular check-ups and they are not getting regular notices that they should go to get tested and assessed. We thank people like Wayne Swan who have come out publicly and talked about their experience with prostate cancer to lift that awareness and to encourage men to also get tested.

A nationally coordinated approach can improve the early detection and treatment of these chronic diseases. The list of preventable diseases is lengthy, and there is no way that I can deal with all of those in this short period of time. Diseases, such as sexually transmitted diseases, are truly preventable, and we need to do more to educate our young people especially about the risks. Then there is the significant effect that tobacco, alcohol and drugs are having on our society, as well as the cost. In 2004-05 the estimated economic cost of licit and illicit drug use to our society was over $56 billion. We need to be doing more in these areas. Obesity is another chronic disease that is preventable, and we certainly need to be doing more to support this.

I am pleased that our GP Superclinic, which is in the process of being built at the moment, will concentrate on acute care and acute general practice services, but importantly, also, on chronic disease management. I know from discussions with the foundation and the consortium that they have a keen focus on preventative health and issues, and this focus will play an important role in the new Moreton Bay Integrated Care Centre being built at Redcliffe.

I have referred to many statistics. This is a necessary tool in lifting awareness and educating all of us about the risks facing each and every one of us if we are not vigilant. We need to do more to make people aware of their diet, physical wellbeing, and the need to get regular check-ups and be more aware of warning signs. It is through the education of warning signs and through being more aware of our bodies that we can prevent a chronic disease developing and progressing. By focusing on preventive measures, by investing in this agency and funding important educational and other initiatives, we can save in the long run. These savings can then be used in a more targeted way to improve our health and hospital system around the country to ensure quality treatment and support to those most in need.

I have already had the benefit of being part of the federal government’s consultation on the Health and Hospital Reforms recommendations at our Royal Women’s Hospital and to talk with some of my local health professionals about ways the government can improve our health in hospitals locally. This dialogue will continue—and not just as our local GP superclinic progresses and as part of the consultation on the reform recommendations. I will continue to play my important role as a local spokesperson for the government in explaining and discussing the government’s broader health policy and as a spokesperson for my local community to advocate on their behalf to the government and the relevant ministers to work towards providing the best quality health care in my local community. I applaud the Rudd government in establishing this agency and commend this bill to the House.

Pat Farmer (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also stand to support the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. This is a major issue in relation to the health of the nation and to the expenses that are incurred by governments right across the board—whether they be local councils or state or federal governments—in the health portfolio. It has been estimated that around $10 billion is used each year to supplement the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. A lot of the expenses relating to private and public health right across the board could be alleviated through a significant presence of the sports portfolio and a recognition of the connection between sport and other physical activity and the various lifestyle diseases that we suffer from. There is cancer, heart disease, diabetes and the list goes on. Every single thing that involves the human body can be alleviated through physical activity and through the support of physical activity. I, together with a number of the members of the government, would like to call for a greater emphasis on the sports portfolio in relation to preventative medicine.

I am very happy to speak on the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009 because it is only through preventative health measures that we will cut down on the numbers on waiting lists for our public hospital system, create a much healthier nation and keep people out of nursing homes. It was estimated by the This is Your Life program a number of years ago that I personally had raised over $2 million for various worthwhile charitable causes. A number of those causes related to heart disease and a number to diabetes et cetera. There have been so many different causes that I find it difficult to recall them all at this point in time. Nevertheless, I have done that because I truly and honestly believe that the issue needs a two-pronged approach: one, we need significant investment in our health portfolio; and, two, we need awareness by each and every Australian that they need to take responsibility for their own lives. That means taking responsibility for every single thing that they consume and taking responsibility for their lifestyle. Events such as the Walk to Work Day and the various sporting and activity programs that are set up for youth, for our children and for many adults as well need to be applauded and supported.

One thing I mentioned to the previous government was that I was little disappointed that a lot of federal funding, and indeed a lot of state funding, goes into the high end of sport. That is often because of the glamour and because it is covered on TV and throughout the media quite extensively. However, I believe that the true benefits to this nation will come through financial support for the junior sports. There are a number of mums and dads out there who are coaches and who could be encouraged to complete St John’s Ambulance courses and to be the on-field representatives of St John’s Ambulance in the event that anybody is hurt or injured during the course of playing sport. Others could take up coaching and then encourage their children and other children to participate in sport. Once again, it is about prevention and it is about creating a greater volume of activity amongst our younger people so that they can move with a healthier lifestyle from the primary years into their secondary years and then through to adulthood. This means there is a significant role for those at the senior level too.

In my own electorate of Macarthur a number of surveys on mental health patients were done by the area health service. They discovered that, if they could get mental health patients in Waratah House and other venues around Western Sydney to participate in a regular physical activity program, (1) they could cut down on the amount of medication needed, (2) they could cut down on the amount of violence perpetrated by patients through the frustration they felt at being confined in these places and (3) patients could recover much more quickly from a number of the ailments they were suffering as a result of their mental health condition and return to a relatively normal lifestyle. That means they could return home to their families and even get back into the workforce. That is all through physical activity in a regular physical activity program.

The same organisation, Western Sydney Area Health Service, have also done numerous tests and run pilot programs for the elderly in nursing homes about being physically active. They found that through that physical activity they were able to stave off a lot of the problems of an ageing lifestyle and consequently stay out of the hospital system for much longer, cut down on medication and be of greater worth to both their community and their families—and to themselves.

As we live longer lives, it is most important that we lead healthier lives as well, and it is only through preventative health that we can do that. I call on the government to please consider the sport portfolio as a major portfolio in the prevention of a number of the health problems that we experience in Australia today. I encourage all of the other members who will be speaking in this debate to be advocates for preventative health out there in the wider community. I would like to thank the government for giving us all the opportunity to speak on this bill and for putting this bill forward.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to endorse the words of the member for Macarthur and say that I agree wholeheartedly with what he said about preventative health. Investment in preventative health is the best possible investment that we can make in our nation’s health.

The Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009 establishes the agency to support the Australian Health Ministers Conference and, through the conference, the Council of Australian Governments to address the increasingly complex challenges associated with preventable chronic diseases. The agency will assist these councils in their efforts to cross portfolios, jurisdictions and sections in support of nationally agreed preventative health policies. The establishment of the agency was recommended by both the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and the National Preventative Health Taskforce. The agency will provide the leadership, coordination and monitoring required to support the successful implementation of the initiatives funded through the national strategy, including interventions to help Australians modify their lifestyles.

The Commonwealth will be providing funding of $133.2 million over four years for the agency. Of this, $17.6 million will go to its establishment and maintenance; $102 million will be used for social marketing, which is extremely important in relation to preventative health because of its educational role; and $13.1 million will be used for preventative health research and its translation into practice; and $0.5 million will be used for an audit of preventive health workforce availability and the development of a strategy to address any identified gaps. Under the auspices of COAG, the federal government reached agreement with the states and territories in November last year for a National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health, which will be funded by $872 million from the government.

Madam Deputy Speaker, you might ask why all this is needed. I would draw the House’s attention to the greatest health costs we face in this country, which are chronic illness and issues associated with the ageing of the population. This legislation will give the government and the Australian people a mechanism by which to address the lifestyle diseases that have increased in recent times. I would like to draw the House’s attention to the fact that cardiovascular disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, arthritis and cancer are all lifestyle diseases and are linked into this legislation. Preventive health can make a major impact on the incidence of all of those diseases. Cardiovascular disease is still claiming the lives of Australians and is one of the highest incidence diseases affecting Australians. In relation to stroke, I recently brought a private member’s motion to the House. That motion addressed the lifestyle issues that impact on people and lead to an increased incidence of stroke.

We still have a high incidence of alcohol use and abuse. In Australia, 90 per cent of people have tried alcohol in their lifetime, 83 per cent have consumed an alcoholic drink in the past 12 months, only about 10 per cent of Australian adults have never had a serve of alcohol, around eight per cent drink daily and around 41 per cent drink weekly. There is also an enormous cost associated with the abuse of alcohol through the incidences of motor vehicle accidents, domestic violence and the number of people in hospital due to consumption of alcohol. It also contributes to a number of cancers, stroke, diabetes and to so many of the lifestyle diseases that we have been talking about.

When we were discussing the alcopops legislation, it was highlighted by the AMA what a problem the use of alcohol and binge drinking has created in our society. The agency will be working to educate and raise people’s awareness of issues relating to alcohol. I think that, if you put that into the context of society as a whole, you will see there are enormous savings to be made in the area of health through, for example, domestic violence and policing. The whole of the community will benefit not just one sector but right across the community.

As well as alcohol there is the tobacco problem. Twenty per cent of people still smoke. The diseases that I have referred to previously such as stroke, cardiovascular, arthritis and cancer are all negatively impacted upon by smoking. These are lifestyle diseases. There has been a reduction in the number of people who do smoke, but it is still an enormous problem within our community. Unless the issues of tobacco and alcohol are addressed we will not see the decline in cardiovascular, stroke, arthritis and cancer diseases that we would like to see in our community.

The member for Macarthur rightly pointed out that with a fitter and healthier society enormous savings right across the board can be made, including savings in medication. Every member of this House is constantly approached by companies that have drugs that address the illnesses that have been caused by smoking, alcohol and other lifestyle issues.

I would like to turn to one issue that is very close to my heart. I see that the member for Hindmarsh has entered the chamber, and he chairs the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing. An issue that we on the health and ageing committee looked at in great detail was obesity. We brought down a report in May this year, called Weighing it up, which looked at obesity. In the report we made some recommendations and one of them was to look at supporting such an agency—a whole-of-government and a whole-of-community approach to addressing the issue of obesity. Australia is a country with one of the greatest numbers of overweight people in the developed nations, with about one in two adults and up to one in four children being overweight or obese. That is a rather frightening statistic. We face a situation where the children growing up in Australia look at dying at a younger age than the generation we are part of. I believe that the establishment of the agency and the effect of having the Commonwealth government, the state governments, the business community and health professionals—everybody who is involved in the sector—coming together and working as one will help to address this, as it will for the other illnesses that I have mentioned. Currently, only two per cent of the health budget is spent on preventative health; the rest of it is spent on treating the illnesses that could be prevented if we had a strong preventative health program in place. That is what will be delivered through this legislation.

Returning to obesity, our report highlighted things that do work and things that need to be done to address the issue of overweight and obesity. It also highlighted the cost to Australia of the fact that we have such a problem with overweight. It referred to the Australian National Children’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey that stated that 17 per cent of children in Australia are classified as overweight and six per cent are classified as obese. I see that as a very significant figure. It also highlighted that, in addition to the cost of being overweight and obesity for individuals, families and communities, there is a huge financial cost for the health system. Access Economics released a report: The growing cost of obesity in 2008. The latest report found that the total cost of obesity in 2008 came to $58.2 billion—quite a significant amount. It linked obesity to the fact that we have increased problems with arthritis and diabetes, and it highlighted some actions that could be taken to address these issues.

One of the best programs we visited whilst we were doing this report into obesity was the Active After-school Communities program. It did just what the member for Macarthur was talking about—it encouraged children to be active and looked at nutrition. They were given healthy afternoon teas, they exercised and they had fun. Young children who are involved in programs like this discover that exercise is fun. I think we as members of parliament should encourage children to be involved in planned activities. In the Shortland electorate we have five junior and senior surf lifesaving clubs. We should encourage young people to be involved in surf lifesaving, netball, soccer, football of whatever code, basketball or walking with the family.

With a strong social marketing program the government can provide education, including education on nutrition. One of the best advertisements that the committee looked at was one that highlighted eating foods from different food groups and combining that with exercise. A healthy lifestyle is about eating well, exercising well, cutting out smoking, and monitoring and using alcohol sensibly. If we do all of those things, we will have a healthier society. The Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009 puts in place a structure through which this can be done. It can be a coordinated approach, whereby all levels of government direct their social marketing towards the common goal of increasing the fitness and improving the health of all Australians. Reducing people’s alcohol intake, reducing the number of people who smoke, and reducing the number of people who are obese or overweight will achieve that goal.

This will be a whole-of-government approach. The Commonwealth and the state governments will work together, but I think local governments also have a part to play. When we build our cities and communities there should be proper walking and cycle tracks set in place. I commend the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government on the cycle tracks that have been approved by this government because they are all about promoting health. They are all about the family getting out on the weekend and going for a walk or cycle. The family can do things together and the side effect is a healthier community.

I would also like to look at addressing preventative health measures towards our ageing population. As people get older they tend to become less active, but that is not necessary. There are a number of activities that older Australians can participate in. Given the right sort of support, they embrace the fact that they can still be involved in activities.

I hold two seniors forums, or information days, a year. As part of those information days, I include an exercise component. Sometimes it will be Tai Chi or sometimes it will be people coming along from Heartmoves, and they run through some very simple exercises that people can do. People can exercise sitting on a chair and still improve their fitness. At the same time, information is provided on nutrition.

As we get a little bit older, we often feel that we know what we should eat and that we know how we should exercise—we have done it all our lives. I must admit that I do not exercise as much as I used to when I was younger. I have tended to look towards what I have done in the past to determine what I do now. But a really big component is changing our behaviour and saying: ‘Well, we can exercise more. We can eat differently.’ By undertaking these types of life changes, we become healthier people and, as such, we become a healthier nation.

I commend this legislation to the parliament and congratulate the minister on getting the agreement that she has. I know that she is totally committed to preventative health and improving the health of all Australians.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I start, can I say that I endorse everything that the member for Shortland said. The member for Shortland is on the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing with me and I know her interest in this area and how seriously she takes this issue.

I rise today in support of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. This bill creates an agency which will provide evidence based advice to health ministers on key national-level preventative health issues, either at their direction or by providing information about emerging challenges and threats. It will also provide national leadership, which is very important and something that we have not seen for 11 years, and stewardship of surveillance data on preventable chronic diseases. We are seeing the emergence of these lifestyle diseases, as they are called, which relate to risk factors and the agency will work to improve the availability and comparability of the evidence of links.

Illnesses of modern day life, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, blood pressure and obesity, can be prevented. These are preventable illnesses. We know that cardiovascular disease is caused by the excesses of today’s modern world. We all eat too much. We do not exercise enough. We know that the cause of diabetes is, again, lifestyle. We are seeing increasing numbers of people with diabetes in our communities. Blood pressure is another example. The list goes on.

The whole idea is to prevent these illnesses, or at least do all that we can to ensure that people know all they can about the prevention of these illnesses. We know that you can prevent these things by exercise and by eating less. That is something that we should all be doing—perhaps I am not a very good example of that, but I do try occasionally. When I do try, those kilos do drop off. It is important that we keep this in mind and change our lifestyles to ensure that we do go on to live healthier and longer. As I said, all these diseases are preventable—cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes, just to name a few. All of these diseases can be prevented if we lead the right lifestyles.

In today’s modern world it is difficult and it is hard. This is where governments and our community come in, to ensure that we are doing all that we can to encourage people to eat less and to exercise more. We live in a world today where both parents work; where they rush home from work; where we are all very busy; and where sometimes it is easier to go and get some takeaway than to sit down and have a traditional cooked meal as we used to many, many years ago.

When I was chairing the inquiry into obesity by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, where we delivered the report, Weighing it up: obesity in Australia, one of the things we also discovered was that many people have lost the art of nutritional cooking. Because of the lifestyles of today, many people have not passed on those culinary skills to the next generation. We have found that within one generation we have lost the whole art of healthy, nutritional cooking that our grandparents and great-grandparents had. But these are all things that can be overcome. These are not things that we have to just sit back and accept.

During the inquiry we visited some schools and saw some great things. One school that stands out is the primary school in the suburb of Northcote. They conducted a particular project: part of the children’s science class was to grow vegetables, to grow food. They learnt about the science side of it, as well as the nutritional benefits, but they also learnt some culinary skills through having to cook their meals. There was no canteen or tuckshop in the school. Every day their lunch was cooked by the children themselves in the communal kitchen. They used the ingredients from the garden, and food was bought from the butcher and other places. We saw some great, healthy foods being cooked. For example, we saw a lentil dish that these kids cooked the day we were there. After the cook-up, they all sat down and shared their meal. They were learning about the scientific side—the growing of the vegetables—they were learning about healthy, nutritional eating, and they were learning the culinary skills. When we spoke to them about takeaway food, they complained that sometimes their parents wanted to get takeaway and the kids would tell them off and say, ‘No, we should cook a meal that is very simple,’ and they had all the skills to be able to do it. This is a classic example of putting preventive health into action by educating the next generation. This was a great example. These kids will grow up knowing nutritional food, knowing what is good for them, and I dare say that most of them will be much healthier than their parents if they continue along these lines.

We all have a role to play in this: governments including state and local governments, community, industry and all of us for ourselves. We have seen many successful campaigns in the past, such as the campaigns to reduce the number of people smoking; the AIDS campaign which was very successful in the mid-80s; and the Life. Be In It campaign, with Norm. Most people around my age would remember Norm. I cannot remember what his partner’s name was, but she was very healthy and liked to be active, and Norm would always sit on the couch. These were all campaigns that were proven, tested and were working.

Currently, there is a great campaign on television called Weighing It Up. It shows a man walking through a measurement belt. His young daughter throws a ball at him, but he gradually gains weight as he is walking. It is a great ad that hits you, and it shows how easy it is for those kilograms to creep on over the years and the damage that those kilograms can then do. This particular ad shows this man turning his life around—within seconds of course, although in reality it takes a lot longer—and it does bring the message home. We have managed to ensure that the number of people in Australia who smoke has been drastically reduced, and that has been through campaigns telling people the damage that cigarettes and smoking do. Through education we have a whole generation of people now who understand that it is dangerous to smoke, that it will affect their health and they will die from it one day. I look around sometimes and wonder how many people I know over the age of 60 who still smoke. I do not know any because those who did are either dead or have quit. So that is a good message for our young people who are contemplating smoking: it does do damage and you will die from it one day. The AIDS campaign was another great campaign, and Australia had one of the lowest rates of AIDS in the world due to the quick action of the then government that took on this big advertising campaign showing the dangers and all the issues involved with that disease.

The House committee, as I mentioned, produced the report Weighing it up: obesity in Australia. We saw the connection between obesity and illnesses and diseases and how the majority of the illnesses and diseases were caused by our lifestyle. We saw the many issues that were involved but also learnt how we could assist in turning it around to ensure that people lived healthier lifestyles. As I also said, it is something in which all of us have a role to play. That includes local government, state government, the federal government, industry and us as individuals in the community. For example, one thing that I cannot for the life of me ever understand is this. Every time a restaurant or a business opens up somewhere local government requires that they have X number of car parks. That does not encourage anyone to walk or catch a bus. It means that we expect to find a car park in front of the premises that we are going to. These are just some little things that could change the attitudes of people. If you cannot find a car park, you will leave your car further up or you will catch public transport and do a bit of walking.

We have created massive Westfield shopping centres out in the middle of suburbia which have ensured that every little corner shop has shut down. Therefore, you have to physically get into a motor vehicle to drive down to the shopping centre and park your car right out the front. You find the closest car park that you can. You go in and do a little bit of shopping, go back into your car and then drive all the way home—with no exercise at all. Many years ago, our shopping and our other activities were done in the suburban main street. I think this still goes on in some of the country towns. You would walk down the main street, you would go to the butcher and you would say hello to a few people. It was also good for the mind, because you would have a discussion with half a dozen people along the way. This has all vanished from our landscape. A lot of the things that we used to do that kept us healthy—without us even knowing about it—have disappeared. I think we have a lot to answer for when it comes to our planning laws. Local governments, state governments and all of us have played a role in this. We have not thought of the other effects that these planning laws have had on our health. We all have a role to play. We need to ensure that, when we come up with planning laws, we take into account bikeways, pathways and connectivity so that people can feel comfortable about going out. We should encourage people to walk or to lead lifestyles where they are exercising and they do not even know about it.

As the member for Shortland said, the committee visited a school in her electorate. It was Marks Point Public School. They had a program going that they asked us to get involved in. It was an exercise program, and it was a lot of fun. You played different sports. They were very simple sports. There was a sport called ‘sockey’, where there was a ball similar to a soccer ball but you hit it with a big hockey stick. It was great fun. By the end of it I realised I had done some exercise without even knowing I was exercising. These are the things that we have to encourage people to do. We also saw the tai chi that the Gold Coast City Council offered its residents free of charge on a park near the beach every morning. It was wonderful to go out there and see what they were doing. Many pensioners were part of the group that would come out in the morning and do tai chi. It was about encouraging people to exercise and get some fresh air. Again, there was the other issue of connecting with other people. As many of them were very elderly, if not for the tai chi class they might not have seen anyone else for the rest of the day.

There are other preventive areas that we should be looking at as well. I am pleased that the government has looked at binge drinking and alcohol. It is very sad when you go out on a Saturday night, in many of the city centres, and see young adults, young adolescents and young people absolutely blind drunk. That is in some circumstances. I am not saying all kids do this. The damage that binge drinking does to the mind and to the body will obviously have effects on their health in future years. I am glad that the government is tackling that area of alcohol and binge drinking.

We should be working very hard to educate young people that it is not good for you to binge drink and wipe yourself out. I do not know why we have this culture, but it is a cultural thing and we have to turn it around. I think the only way we can turn it around is through preventative health programs such as what is being proposed here. There will be some advertising, and we have seen lots of good advertising about binge drinking. But it is also a cultural thing. We need to change people’s way of thinking and let them know that it is not okay to binge drink and wipe yourself out. As I said, the health effects will be a big issue in the future.

The government is tackling these big issues through this particular bill, through the alcopops bill and through the advertising on obesity that we have seen on TV. These issues are very, very important. As the member for Shortland said earlier, and as many other speakers have said in this debate, we are an ageing population. We are living longer. But the costs to governments to provide the required health services are going to be enormous. For example, in the inquiry into obesity we heard that Access Economics have done some figures showing that the fact that we are an overweight nation is already costing us $68 billion a year. That is a lot of money and it will only increase; it is on the way up. Unless we can turn it around, for any government—whether Labor, Liberal, National or Callithumpian—funding our health services in the future is going to be an enormous task. We must turn it around. We received a lot of evidence during the inquiry from professors, doctors and cardiologists that perhaps the next generation would be the first generation in hundreds of years that lived a shorter life than the one before because of lifestyle. That would be due to us overeating, overdrinking and leading the lives that we do. The future health costs will be enormous unless this issue is tackled at this point in time so that we can turn it around. How do we do that? Again, the only way to do it is through preventative health measures. Preventative health is so important, especially, as I said, given the ageing population and the estimation of future costs.

When I visit the doctor occasionally in my electorate, I go to a fantastic clinic that I have been going to ever since I was a little kid—the Western Clinic. I have great doctors there, Dr Chia and Dr White, who regularly talk to me about preventative health. I had a discussion with Dr Chia, when I was there last, about this bill and what we were doing. He basically said that this was the way to go. Doctors are so overrun in their clinics, especially in some suburban areas. This particular clinic in my electorate is continually packed. It is in a low-income area that has lots of migrants. The doctors are so overworked in this clinic; there is a continuous line-up. When I speak to my doctor about it and I say, ‘You are so busy,’ he says to me, ‘How can we turn people away?’ They bulk-bill, of course. So this is another area that we must tackle: the ability of doctors, health workers and nurses to provide the services that we as a community demand. How do we do this? When we talk about preventative health, we are talking not only about preventing lifestyle illnesses and diseases but also about being able to access health services where you can have check-ups at an early stage to ensure that illnesses are detected and you can be helped before it is too late. That addresses two issues: firstly, it is detrimental to your health not to act early and, secondly, it is costly because the costs escalate.

If we can make opportunities for people to access doctors, to access services were they can have check-ups—for instance, where you can check your diabetes, your blood sugar level, and where blokes can check their prostate. I was interested to hear when I attended the launch of the prostate foundation’s Prostate Awareness Month last month that the earlier you can get in for a check-up, the earlier you diagnose it, the higher the likelihood there is of you surviving prostate cancer. That means you survive it: you have treatment early and the costs are low. If you let it go, you will not survive it and the costs will escalate as well. These are the areas that we must tackle, and I am glad to see that this government has taken the initiative to tackle this area. When you speak to all of the experts, they are saying that preventative health is the way we must go. When I speak to my local doctor, he says the same thing. When we spoke to professors and to the many learned people who appeared before the inquiry that we had into obesity, they also had the same view that that was the way we should all be heading. As I said, prevention is better than looking for the diagnosis after you have the illness. I commend this bill to the House.

Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I wish to support the government’s Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. In speaking on this bill, I would like to make note of the important preventive health initiatives, including the important role that community and supporting infrastructure can play in preventive health, particularly in rural and regional Australia. Health is a serious issue in my electorate of Flynn. People are tired of the blame game and they just want an outcome. At the inaugural meeting of the Prime Minister’s country task force, which I chair, we heard in no uncertain terms that health was the No. 1 issue concerning the local Longreach community, situated in the western part of Flynn. This is a concern that is echoed in my home town of Gladstone in Central Queensland, where many local residents have campaigned tirelessly over many years for better local health care services, including proper cancer treatment services in their own home town. These local crusaders have my full support and conviction on this matter and I call on the Queensland state government to further assist them.

I was pleased to have recently been able to host the Minister for Indigenous Health, Rural and Regional Health and Regional Service Delivery, the Hon. Warren Snowdon, for a public health forum held in my home town of Gladstone. The minister heard the same story that day, among many others. The public forum allowed Gladstone and district communities to have direct input into the future direction and structure of our healthcare system and to comment directly to the minister on the government’s National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s report. As their local federal member, I was pleased that local residents from various walks of life—from health care professionals to patients—were able to attend and contribute to this forum, giving a true 360-degree picture of our current healthcare system in Gladstone. Today I would like to thank the honourable Minister Snowdon and all those who attended for their participation in this important discussion concerning the national interest—that is, health. I know that the minister left Gladstone with a much clearer picture of our local healthcare system, its faults and its problems and our future healthcare needs.

If it is the case that our health is the most important issue to us all then it is only logical that, as a government, we take steps to protect people’s health. It is after all, as I have always said privately and publicly, the most important asset that we will ever have. To protect people’s health, the Rudd government has a focus on preventive health measures and I am proud to see this bill in this parliament to establish Australia’s first national preventative health agency. This focus on preventative health measures has been a key recommendation from several expert bodies, including in the Preventative Health Taskforce, the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission and the External Reference Group on primary health care through the Department of Health and Ageing. I would like to thank all of these bodies for their advice to government on this matter.

Preventative health is, of course, about preventing chronic diseases. It is about managing our health and our lifestyle in a way that may avoid such serious chronic diseases, including but not limited to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and certain forms of cancer. If one were to visit almost any hospital in any town in Australia, one could quickly see the painful suffering that chronic diseases can bring to the lives of ordinary Australians and their families. One would quickly witness patients along with their families suffering from emphysema, heart disease, lung cancer or complications caused by diabetes, just to name a few. In many of these cases, these chronic diseases and the suffering that comes along with them may have been prevented by better awareness and education on the dangers of modern life, including obesity, alcohol, drugs and tobacco use. Chronic diseases can take an emotional toll on our families and our communities, but there is also an economic toll, with recent estimates that obesity, alcohol and tobacco cost our economy over $31 billion every year when we take into account crime, lost productivity and the burden that they place on our health system.

Up to 70 per cent of our healthcare budget is taken up by treating chronic diseases, many of which are preventable, while currently only two per cent of health expenditure is targeted at preventative health measures. These numbers show that there is a clear need to act towards preventative health and that there are clear advantages in taking action on preventative health. As the old saying goes, ‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.’ I am pleased to be a member of a government of action, and this bill before us today acts to create the Australian National Preventative Health Agency. This agency will be a vital weapon we can use to combat the ever-complex and challenging nature of chronic diseases and preventative health in this country. Run by a CEO, the agency will consist of an advisory council of between seven and 11 members, offering expertise from a diverse range of health fields and sectors. It is proposed that the agency will be up and running from 1 January 2010. To ensure the Australian National Preventative Health Agency has sufficient resources, funding of $133.2 million has been allocated over four years, with $102 million of this to be focused on national level social marketing campaigns targeting obesity and smoking.

I am pleased that a significant part of the agency’s resources will be used on social marketing campaigns. We only need to look at the success of anti-drink-driving campaigns over the past decade on shifting community attitudes with drink driving now considered by many as the most unacceptable and antisocial of actions, even if one is not caught. Equally important will be the agency’s role in providing evidence based advice to government on key preventative health measures. This agency will offer long overdue national leadership and coordination on preventative health strategies. The Australian National Preventative Health Agency will be a key driver as we attempt to change certain behaviours through education, promotion and community awareness, all of which will be backed by the latest research and evidence to ensure their effectiveness.

There are already some community and health groups that are stepping up to the challenge of tackling preventative health. I am pleased to see that this bill proposes that the agency can provide financial assistance or grants to third parties to support research and interventions. Perhaps the most important role of the Australian National Preventative Health Agency will be its biennial report on the state of preventative health in this country so that we can ensure that we are on track and that preventative health strategies are indeed working.

The National Preventive Health Agency is just one avenue that the Rudd Labor government is using to help encourage healthier choices and promote the benefits of a healthier lifestyle in our communities. Already, we have the Healthy Kids Check, a new health service this government introduced to ensure that every four-year-old Australian is healthy, fit and ready to learn when they start school. The Healthy Kids Check is also a tool to promote a healthy lifestyle to both the child and their parents, and comes with its own resource, Get Set 4 Life, which ensures that the healthy living message continues well after the initial consultation. I encourage all families in my electorate of Flynn to take advantage of this service.

Another tool in our preventative health campaign is the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program. This is a fascinating and unique program where the government provides funding to local state primary schools to grow, harvest and cook their own food, teaching our students a valuable lesson about healthy food and helping to understand better the relationship between food and the table. The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program is currently underway at one of the primary schools in my electorate of Flynn. I make special mention of the dedicated staff and students of Rosedale State School for their commitment and great work to date in running this program. I congratulate them for this week being awarded an Order of Australia Primary Schools Citizenship Award, recognising their efforts and innovations in running the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program.

I also congratulate the Wondai State School—its teachers, students and parents—in the southern part of my electorate, together with their partner BIEDO—the Burnett Inland Economic Development Organisation. Together, and in partnership, they recently won a National Australia Bank award through the Schools First program. The school had a number of concerns, including students with poor eating habits, a lack of knowledge about how to obtain or make healthy foods, a lack of energy and engagement in class, and associated behavioural issues. The program involved a partner assisting students with garden design, choosing plants, teaching students permaculture principles, organising excursions, developing community links, organising working bees and sourcing grant opportunities. Students at Wondai work in the garden planting, growing, harvesting, cooking and eating. They attend working bees, care for chooks and lead an environmental action group. Teachers, parents and community members have also been heavily involved. I congratulate them all, including the National Australia Bank. The Wondai State School is an example to all Australian schools that good outcomes, including a better outcome for health, can be achieved by these programs.

Preventative health is not only about education, healthy eating and healthy choices. It is also about encouraging members of our community to be more active and to enjoy our great outdoors. I am pleased to be part of a government that recognises this fact and is a government committed to health. We have been able to make real inroads into providing better health and community infrastructure throughout Flynn, encouraging residents to be active. In Longreach, in the west, the Rudd government has contributed to new walking tracks and paths. In Emerald we are funding a BMX track and an upgrade to McIndoe Park. In Blackwater the Rudd government is providing $1 million to upgrade the town’s aquatic centre. In Gladstone the Rudd Labor government has committed $200,000 worth of funding to upgrade the local hockey fields. The Gladstone Regional Council and the Gladstone Hockey Association are both contributing to this worthy, healthy project but, despite this, we are still falling short on the total funds required to complete this project. I call on the Queensland state government and big business to come to the table and contribute to getting this project up and running for the health, wellbeing and advancement of our local children.

Building healthier communities takes a great deal of effort and resources, and by attacking the problem from many sides we can expect to see real results. The President of the Public Health Association has said that the National Preventive Health Agency represents:

… a massive step forward in improving health and lives of all Australians.

He said further:

Moves such as this will make Australia the international leader in promoting health and preventing disease.

I firmly believe that this is where Australia belongs, as an international leader in preventing disease. That is why I support the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009, and I commend it to the House.

Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity today to make a contribution on the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. There is a lot to be said for all of us in this country realising that we hold our own health situation in the palms of our hands. So many of us, if we really look at the opportunities we have around us, would realise that we do not need a gym to make an impact on our personal health. We do not need to pay $1,000 for six months gym membership to do something for ourselves. A lot of preventative health is all about taking personal responsibility. Indeed, as we grow up, we have those opportunities held out in front of us, whether it is the football, in the case of a lot of young blokes at primary and secondary school, or whether it is netball for the girls, or maybe, beyond that, less traditional sports. They are out there. At the school level, children can choose to participate; there are very few limitations on them participating. Of course, if they want to go beyond that and participate in sport at the club level, then that does come down to parents being behind them as well.

A lot of parents do support their children. They realise that they have a responsibility to make sure their children are growing up with the right attitude towards their own health. That is why, on Saturday mornings or Wednesday afternoons, depending on the time of the year, we often see up in Kingsway sporting complex the Wanneroo Districts Netball Association, with well over 1,000 players participating. I commend all of those young people, and not quite so young people, who participate, whether it is as a member of a team or whether is in some other capacity—coaching, supporting sport or the administration of the association. I have spoken on the Wanneroo Districts Netball Association before. But I also commend the parents who want to set that good example for their children by making it easy for them to participate by driving them and, where possible, walking to the Kingsway sporting complex. That is very good.

But, as I said before, we do not necessarily need to have a club to participate in sport, to look after ourselves. I will not go to the point of delivering some sermon because I know I have a few skeletons in the closet of my personal health, but it is the responsibility of all of us to look in the mirror each day and say: ‘Well, am I doing all I can? Am I being the best person I can be? Am I making the effort to look after myself?’ Our children see what we are doing to ourselves as well, whether it is alcohol abuse, drug abuse or abuse of fast food. Although I turned from the path of my personal self-destruction, which is hot chips, about 15 years ago, I admit that about once a year I might go to Hungry Jack’s for a whopper.

Indeed, my children do seem to be quite fond of fried chips. I guess when you are younger you have more of a capacity to burn off these things. But what I would always say is that no life should be based upon the consumption of fast food. It always worries me when I see people who look like they should be avoiding fast food making their way to KFC, Hungry Jack’s—over in Perth, particularly Hungry Jack’s—McDonald’s or one of those other outlets. Again, it comes down to personal responsibility and parents showing the leadership in their household that they should not make hot chips or fried chicken or hamburgers a staple of everyday sustenance. That should never be the case.

I spoke before about netball as an excellent local sport and an excellent local option for young people within the electorate of Cowan. I have also spoken before about the number of Little Athletics clubs we have within Cowan; indeed, I am sure all members of this House have Little Athletics clubs in their electorates. As we would know, Little Athletics is one of those organisations where the parents are most certainly involved not just in transporting their children to training sessions and competitions on Saturdays but also there is a great deal of parental participation in making sure these clubs are running, whether it is as timekeepers or equipment managers. There are roles for just about all parents.

I believe so strongly in junior sport that I—and probably other members as well—sponsor my own interschool basketball competition, where I try to bring together schools that would not normally associate with each other, because they are 10 suburbs apart or that sort of limitation, and have them come to a local sporting complex for a bit of a round robin event. It is lots of good fun. We are about to do the second one in November—not very far away—and I am certainly looking forward to that.

One of the things I like about junior sport is that it gives children not just the fitness aspects of the sport but so often it is about teamwork, dedication and thinking about other people apart from yourself. I also like it because it tends to limit the independence that so many children seem to have forced upon them these days. What I mean by that, to be absolutely clear, is that if a 16-year-old who has social demands upon them—whether it is, sadly, underage drinking or other bad things, or whether it is basically not having a great deal of direction just by associating with friends—and you can maintain reliance between a young person and a parent, as in, ‘I need you mum or dad to drive me to training or to drive me to the game,’ that is an extremely positive thing. That keeps open a line of communication between young people and parents and that is an entirely positive thing. Of course, as we know, if we set the right examples for young people and promote junior sport as well, we would imagine that children will have a pretty good chance of growing up with the capacity to make the right decisions and to lead the good lifestyle that the parents have demonstrated to them and they will enjoy better success in the future as a result.

Some years ago I was working in the Army not too far from here, down at Weston Creek, which was at that time called the Australian College of Defence and Strategic Studies. As a captain I was a very junior officer compared to the other participants, as they were called there, who were one-stars, brigadiers and above, as well as some from overseas. There was the occasional SES-grade public servant, but participants were predominantly Australian Army, Navy or Air Force. I remember one of the PTIs, the physical training instructors, came to the gym to instruct the senior officers in the safe use of the gym, and he said to them, and I took this on board as well: ‘If you do a thousand push-ups a day you’ll have a fabulous set of stomach muscles; but if you don’t change your lifestyle, if you don’t reduce the amount of food you take in, then you might have a fabulous set of muscles but they’ll be under quite a deal of fat.’

When we talk about the gym or exercise of any kind, the reality is that, particularly when you are pushing 45 like me, you need to make those other choices that are not quite as much fun, like using the treadmill or the cross-trainer in the gym downstairs, where you can watch TV. I watch the news, of course, to keep up to date with events—nothing that entertaining. You have to make those hard decisions with your life. As much as I would like to turn away from ice cream, bread and butter, and things like that, I have not yet crossed that line. But about 15 years ago, realising I had a form of addiction, I decided that my daily intake of hot chips was not going to serve me well in the future and so I stopped. It was a bit hard and, whenever my kids are sitting there with their hot chips or in the back of the car with their hot chips, there is occasionally a little sense of envy. But I have turned from that path of self-destruction!

As I said before, when we look in the mirror and see that maybe the sixpack is not there anymore—not even close to it—or we are looking a bit heavy, we have got to start looking at the bad choices we are making as individuals. While I agree that government has a part to play and preventative programs have a part to play, first and foremost we as individuals and adults need to make those hard decisions ourselves. In particular, as parents we need to set good examples in the responsible consumption of alcohol, which other members have referred to, no use of illicit drugs whatsoever—and I condemn that outright—and, above all, the case of food. We must make sure that we make the lifestyle choices which give us a chance, because we do have a responsibility. We assume a certain right to access the health system in this country, but as with all rights there are responsibilities. We need to acknowledge that we should not place undue pressure on the health system with diseases caused by self-abuse, as in putting on too much weight.

To move on to something a little bit more controversial, some years ago—I have not seen too much of it lately—there was a lot of discussion about self-image and body image and the fact that it was bad to tell young people in particular that they were overweight. I would never say that as parents we should be saying to our daughters, ‘You’re fat; lose some weight.’ There are ways to say these things properly. But we should also never walk away from that responsibility. I have two daughters; that is why I am giving this example. If I thought that one of my daughters was putting on a little bit of weight then I would address that without making that outright statement, which would be seen as negative. We should never run away from the fact that these discussions need to be had, because, again, it comes down to our responsibilities as parents. No-one has a right to weigh down the system just because they have no self-control.

Moving on, recently we received some knowledge about the Active After-school Communities program. All members were invited to participate in that program. As it is my second year in this place, I looked forward to doing that. Unfortunately, in the first year I managed to tear a ligament in my knee on the first day that I went along to one of those programs, at Landsdale Primary School in the electorate of Cowan. I did a bit of damage. I would like to say that it was from doing something dramatic, but I am afraid it was not doing anything dramatic apart from picking up a ball, which reminds me that I am getting on a bit at the age of 44. This year I went along to Landsdale Primary School, St Stephen’s School in Karama and also the Landsdale Gardens Adventist School. The kids do a great job in participating and the staff of the department in the region, away from Canberra, do a great job of promoting healthy lifestyles. This year it was skipping, to see how many millions of skips everyone could do; last year they did paces, with the aim of ‘pacing to Beijing’. There are schools doing a good job, as other members have said as well. One of the schools in my area, Hawker Park Primary School, has the Big Friendly Garden, where all the kids participate in growing and eating nutritious food. Basically, they try to back up parents with good and healthy choices about food.

I have taken up a fair amount of time in this place today, so I finish by saying there is a lot to be said about preventative action with regard to health and there is a lot to be said about programs provided by government to lighten the load on the health system in this country. At the same time, there is no substitute for introspection—the look in the mirror that we all need to do to assess whether we are doing ourselves some damage or whether there are things that we can do better in order to be a healthier person and then set the right example for our children. That is a responsibility of being a parent. Across this country, every citizen has the responsibility to take that action and make sure that they are doing the best job and not just relying on the health system to make up for the indulgences that we gave ourselves in the past.

I have some distance to go myself in this matter. While I now like to lift weights at the gym and do cross-training, I could always do more. Probably all of us here could do more. It is important that we in this place set examples, as well as in our capacities as parents. At least as community leaders, in a way, across this country, we should be setting a good example. I will try to do better myself in the future.

James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. This bill establishes the Australian National Preventive Health Agency to support Australian health ministers in tackling the complex and growing challenge of preventable chronic disease. The Australian National Preventive Health Agency will be a statutory authority under the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997. The Council of Australian Governments agreed to establish the ANPHA in November 2008 as part of the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health, known as Prevention NP. The ANPHA will, broadly, support Australian health ministers in meeting the challenges posed by preventable chronic conditions and the lifestyle related risk factors. A chief executive officer will manage the agency and will be directly accountable to the health minister for the financial management of the agency, via the minister, and for the Australian National Preventive Health Agency’s performance against agreed strategic objectives and operational plans. The agency will have an advisory council comprising between seven and 11 members with preventative health expertise in a variety of disciplines and from a variety of sectors.

This program will be funded and will deliver outcomes. The Rudd Labor government will provide funding of $133.2 million over four years for the new agency. Of this, $17.6 million will be provided for the establishment and maintenance; $102 million will be provided for national level social marketing campaigns targeting obesity and smoking; and $13.1 million will be provided for a preventative health research fund focusing on translational research to support policy development.

Preventative health is a priority area for this government. Preventative health is important for us all. Cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes—in many cases, for many people, all preventable diseases—consume about 70 per cent of the nation’s healthcare budget, yet less than two per cent of health expenditure is directed towards preventing illness. While Australia’s life expectancy on average is one of the highest in the world, second only to Japan’s, it is vitally important that we do better on keeping people healthy and out of hospital so that we can improve and extend lives and reduce the pressure on our hospital system. Chronic disease is a major burden on the health of Australians. In 1996 chronic disease accounted for 80 per cent of the burden of disease, measured in terms of loss of years and quality of life.

One of the emerging challenges and threats facing our health is obesity. As a nation we are more obese than ever. Our young people are now more obese than ever. Our diets are richer and our exercise rate as a population is much lower than it was. Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for many chronic diseases. Obesity causes one-fifth of colorectal, breast, uterine and kidney cancers. In 2007-08, 61 per cent of Australian adults aged 18 and over were either overweight, 36.6 per cent, or obese, 24.8 per cent. In the same year, 25 per cent of Australian children aged between five and 17 were overweight, 17.1 per cent, or obese, 7.8 per cent.

Type 2 diabetes is also a lifestyle disease and is strongly associated with high blood pressure, abnormal blood fats and the classic apple-shape body type, in which there is extra weight around the waist. While it usually affects adults, more and younger people, even children, are getting type 2 diabetes. Diseases such as type 2 diabetes are also on the rise. Type 2 diabetes is by far the most common form of diabetes, affecting 85 to 90 per cent of all people with diabetes.

Cardiovascular disease is also a major concern. It accounts for 34 per cent of deaths in Australia. It is a burden on families and community and is also a huge economic burden. We cannot underestimate the damage that a disease that kills one Australian every 10 minutes has. This is a disease that affects two out of three families, and these are diseases whose prevalence could be mitigated with prevention strategies.

Many diseases and cancers can be addressed through such things as improved lifestyle, weight management and an increase in physical activity. People ought to keep an eye on their blood pressure, watch the type of food they eat and beverages they drink, know their cholesterol levels, enjoy alcohol in moderation and, of course, quit smoking. While it is true that fewer people than ever before are smoking, thousands of young people continue to take up the habit each year. Tobacco remains the single biggest preventable cause of death and disease in Australia. Today we all know that smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer—Australia’s biggest cancer killer.

Some alarming facts about lung cancer are these: more than 8,000 Australians are diagnosed with lung cancer each year; more than 7,000 Australians die from lung cancer each year; and about one in 30 Australians will develop lung cancer by the age of 75. It is estimated that up to 90 per cent of lung cancers are due to smoking. So, one million fewer smokers in Australia would prevent the premature deaths of almost 300,000 Australians. That is staggering. We really do have to think seriously about preventive health because this hammers home the message that prevention is better than cure. These are staggering figures, and they are all preventable.

Through the Australian National Preventive Health Agency, we are providing for and recognising preventive health measures in our communities. I am very excited to be part of a government, in partnership with key stakeholder groups, that is about supporting behavioural change through educational, promotional and community awareness programs relating to preventive health. By forming partnerships with these relative groups—industry, non-government and community sectors—to encourage cooperative action leading to preventive health gains, we will make massive inroads to health outcomes for all Australians. I am sure that you can see, from the figures that I mentioned, that this is truly a measure which will prevent the possible deaths, prematurely, of over 300,000 Australians. I wholeheartedly recommend this bill to the House.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. I want to start by congratulating the minister for introducing this important bill, a bill which is designed to tackle the complex and growing challenges of preventable chronic diseases. This bill will establish the Australian National Preventive Health Agency to support all state and federal health ministers to manage the challenges associated with the growing incidence of chronic disease.

The bill also specifies the functions, governance and structure of the agency, including how it will closely interact with the Minister for Health and Ageing. The impetus for the Preventive Health Agency comes from the decision of COAG in November last year. It builds on the national agreement that focuses on preventive health initiatives to improve the health and wellbeing of all Australians.

The Australian National Preventive Health Agency’s role will be to facilitate best practice in the delivery of preventable health interventions and activities. The governance of this agency will be interactive in nature, whereby the CEO will be responsible for working with and supporting all Australian health ministers in their efforts to combat preventable diseases before they become chronic in nature. With millions of Australians suffering from preventable chronic diseases, the role and importance of this agency will be immeasurable. Education, promotion and community awareness will be key responsibilities for the agency, as will its role in research—ensuring up to date data on preventable chronic diseases and their lifestyle related risk factors is made more readily available.

A healthier future for all Australians can be achieved by removing the impact of preventable chronic diseases, which often chokes the heart of our public health system. We know that there are around 670,000 hospital admissions every year due to preventable chronic disease. You only have to walk down the local streets to see some of the lifestyle behaviours that contribute to our growing incidence of chronic diseases. Obesity, lack of exercise, unhealthy eating and smoking are often key contributors to chronic disease such as heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cancers, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and respiratory diseases such as the chronic obstructive airways disease.

All of these chronic diseases can be prevented, to a large extent, by initiating healthy lifestyle choices. A key role of the preventive agency will be to provide leadership and to successfully coordinate health based initiatives that will promote and support Australians to choose a healthy lifestyle, thereby diminishing their risk of developing these chronic diseases. Heart disease, cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis, asthma, diabetes and obesity are often given the chronic label, as the symptoms that people suffer from them tend to be long-lasting and persistent. In many circumstances, the symptoms people suffer develop to an acute stage, when intense medical and nursing interventions are required to treat the patient in a hospital environment. This is what we want to stop.

I spoke earlier of the national partnership that focuses on preventive health measures. Under this partnership, the Commonwealth will be providing funding of $133.2 million over four years to the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. This funding will be used to establish and maintain the agency, but the funding will also provide for some social marketing to educate and support the Australian public in healthy lifestyle choices. More importantly, the money committed to this agency will also ensure preventive health research is carried out to further foster the evidence based approach which remains crucial to this area of health.

I support this bill because it will contribute to reducing the burden of chronic disease in our community. For a long time, the focus of debate on health care has been in the secondary and tertiary context. It is now time that we shift the focus to the primary level, where we can prevent rather than cure. Chronic disease is an area where we can certainly achieve this. Strengthening the focus of primary health care by promoting good health and reducing lifestyle risk, such as smoking and obesity, must be a common-sense starting point.

A national health survey released by the ABS in June this year reflects on the health of Australians throughout 2007-08. I want to go through some of the statistics. We know that the body shape of Australians is changing considerably, especially that of our children. In 2007-08 around 600,000 children aged between five and 17 were overweight. That is one quarter of Australia’s children. Since 1995, obesity in children has climbed by 21 per cent. Due to lifestyle changes, our children are at risk of developing chronic disease. An example is type 2 diabetes. This preventable disease is often associated with people in their 60s and 70s. The figures now reveal that type 2 diabetes is an ever-increasing health issue for Australians aged in their 20s and 30s.

I have to say I was quite shocked and surprised when I first looked at the chronic disease statistics from my home state of Tasmania. The ABS figures reveal that around 390,000 Tasmanians have a health condition that will affect them for six months or more. That is around 77 per cent of Tasmania’s population who suffer from a health condition that could easily become chronic, where they may suffer long-lasting effects. Obviously this impacts on our health system.

When you look at the key health risk factors for Tasmania you start to realise the impact not only on the health system but on Tasmanians themselves. The ABS found that 65.6 per cent of adult males and 62.4 per cent of adult females were overweight or obese in Tasmania. The highest proportions in Tasmania were in the older groups, of 65 plus, which is also very interesting. For the first time the ABS focused the spotlight on children’s consumption of alcohol, and in Tasmania approximately 19 per cent of males aged 15 and over and 29.1 per cent of females aged 15 and over report that they consume alcohol. The highest proportion of those who consume alcohol is in the 25- to 34-year age group. Around 24 per cent of Tasmanians still smoke. Alarmingly, the figures reveal the highest proportion of smokers is in the 24- to 34-year age group, but unfortunately it is also growing in the 18- to 24-year age group, where I was amazed to find that 42 per cent of those who smoke are young females. The lifestyle behaviours listed above—the obesity, the alcohol consumption and the smoking—have the capacity to increase the risk of people developing chronic disease.

The Australian Heart Foundation has also recently released some health statistics on cardiovascular disease prevalence. Its figures reveal that the four regions in Tasmania have some of the highest cardiovascular prevalence across the country. The bigger blow to the health of Tasmanians is that the island boasts the highest rates of cholesterol, the highest rates of blood pressure and, as I said before, the highest rates of smoking. Southern Tasmania, where my electorate of Franklin is, has the highest smoking rates of any region in the country. It also falls into the top worst 10 per cent for high prevalence of cholesterol and blood pressure. In the Greater Hobart area, 21.5 per cent of people suffer from cardiovascular disease.

These statistics give us more reason to support this important health bill. The initiatives included in this bill will, over time, contribute significantly to slowing down and abating the prevalence of chronic disease in Australia. We have to act to prevent the increase in chronic disease prevalence; we need to manage its effects and the impact on Australians and also on the health system. We can achieve this by a number of key measures that will be the responsibility of the new preventative agency that is the core of this bill. The social marketing, the evidence based initiatives, the robust preventative health research and the interaction with all the health ministers in all the states and territories will be vital to ensure we tackle the challenges which exist around chronic disease.

In the lead-up to the last federal election the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing—the then opposition leader and shadow health minister—put preventative health care firmly on the national agenda by promising to invest more in tackling the rising incidence of chronic disease. Since coming to office we have done just that. This government, as part of the COAG agreement, has committed $872 million in the single biggest investment ever by a Commonwealth government in preventative health care. We initiated the Preventative Health Taskforce report, which was delivered to the government on 1 September this year. Its recommendations are now being considered by the government in conjunction with the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission report, which is also a big issue for debate at the moment. We have also removed the tax loophole on alcopops, the drinks I have spoken about in this place that I believe are directly marketed to our young people, and as part of the strategy to discourage our young from binge drinking we have already invested in a National Binge Drinking Strategy.

But we are doing more than that. We are also investing, through other programs, in local sporting venues to encourage our communities to be fit and active. I was pleased to have $6 million allocated recently under the community infrastructure program to two sporting facilities in my electorate, at Bellerive Oval and for the Kingborough twin ovals development. For those announcements I had the local sporting clubs there, and they were really thrilled because they believe the projects will encourage young children in the area to get active and participate in sport, which is obviously a big deal when it comes to preventing some of these diseases. The local sporting infrastructure projects will ensure that the children have access to first-class facilities. At Kingborough, in the south of my electorate, for the first time there will be an AFL standard oval. AFL is a very big deal in my home state of Tasmania and we have been fighting for an AFL team for a little while now, so the young children are very encouraged by that.

Since coming to office this government has also undertaken, as I mentioned, the massive task of reforming the health and hospital system to ensure a healthy future for all Australians. The Prime Minister and the health minister have been travelling around the country holding meetings with clinicians and doctors in hospitals to hear their concerns and views on the current state of Australia’s public health system. I understand that to date the Prime Minister has personally attended 14 meetings and more than 55 direct consultations have occurred across the country. It is a huge task to undertake, considering there are 750 public hospitals across this nation. I was pleased to sit in on the roundtable discussion with the Prime Minister at the Royal Hobart Hospital just over a week ago, along with my federal Tasmanian colleagues. We had a community cabinet in Hobart. We also had consultations at the LGH on the Prime Minister’s recent visit to Tasmania.

At the Royal Hobart Hospital the clinicians and doctors gave us their passionate views about the future of the healthcare system. Some of the GPs talked about primary health care and its important roles. We also talked about the long-term reform of the health and hospital system being a vital component to ensure a sustainable, high-quality, responsive health system for all Australians. We all know that health is always one of the big issues when you ask Australians what they care about. To turn our back on it and not improve and act early when we can on preventable diseases, I believe, is a folly. The old saying ‘prevention is better than cure’ speaks volumes when it comes to improving the health of all Australians. Through measures such as those contained in this bill, the agency will drive many of the health initiatives that will address some of the challenges around chronic disease. It gives us something to build on, a springboard to launch other primary healthcare and preventive healthcare initiatives. It is a commonsense approach to abating the prevalence of chronic disease in Australia. It is a measure that I am quite passionate about and one that I fully support. I commend the bill to the House.

Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is great to join with my colleagues today to support the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009 and great to see the focus on preventive health, which Australia is well overdue for. The Rudd Labor government is committed to improving the health of all Australians through policies that deal with the challenges of access, affordability and the overall cost of providing quality health care. We are doing that in the face of evidence that warns us that those aims will be hard to achieve in the coming decades due to the increased demands and costs associated with the ageing population and increasing rates of chronic disease. That is why we place such priority on preventive health policies and this bill is an integral part of that important strategy.

We recognise that our health system should be as much about keeping people in good health as it is about treating them when they are sick. The focus on preventive health, however, involves a major change in the way we organise and fund our health system, and in the way people think about their lifestyles and personal responsibility for their wellbeing. That requires national leadership, something that was recognised and recommended by both the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and the National Preventative Health Task Force. The government sees the Australian National Preventive Health Agency as a key part of the national effort towards driving those essential changes in the way we look at health.

The bill before us today establishes the Australian National Preventive Health Agency to support Australian health ministers in tackling the complex and growing challenge of preventable chronic disease. The bill specifies the functions, governance and structure of the agency, including the interaction with the Commonwealth Minister for Health and Ageing and the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference. An important part of the structure of the Preventive Health Agency is the advisory council, which will be made up of between seven and 11 members, all with preventive health expertise in a variety of disciplines and from a variety of sectors.

The Australian National Preventive Health Agency takes its place within a much broader preventive health effort being undertaken through a historic partnership on preventive health between Commonwealth and state governments. One year ago COAG signed off on the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health. That partnership represents an initial $872 million investment in preventive health measures, developing strategies to inform people of the risks of obesity, smoking and drinking, and encouraging people to make choices that will lead to better long-term health outcomes. That partnership agreement included the establishment of this Preventive Health Agency.

COAG recognised that supporting or enabling infrastructure such as the Preventive Health Agency, and research and surveillance capacity, was required to support the Commonwealth and the states in their attempts to tackle the complex challenges associated with preventable chronic conditions. It is in this context that the National Preventive Health Agency is being established in order to support Australian health ministers as they attempt to achieve the outcomes specified in the prevention partnership signed off at COAG, particularly those around healthy weight, physical activity, healthy eating and smoking.

A key initial role of the Preventive Health Agency will be to provide the leadership, coordination and monitoring required to support the successful implementation of initiatives funded through the prevention partnership, including $692 million out of that $872 million I mentioned earlier, to provide interventions to help Australians to modify their lifestyles. Beyond this, the Preventive Health Agency will more broadly support Australian health ministers in meeting the challenges posed by preventable chronic conditions and the lifestyle related risk factors.

Under the prevention partnership, the Commonwealth will provide funding of $133.2 million over four years for the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. Of this, $17.6 million will be provided for the establishment and maintenance of the agency. Other funds will be used for social marketing—an amount of $102 million—and there is $13.1 million to support preventative health research, particularly that which focuses on the translation of research into practice. There is also money for audit workforce availability and to develop a strategy to address any identified gaps in that workforce. Subject to the passage of this bill, the agency will commence operations on 1 January 2010. That is important as funds for its establishment and for a range of measures commence in the 2009-2010 financial year.

We know that the challenges surrounding chronic disease and lifestyle risk factors are very large. There are already, of course, numerous programs across the country aimed at increasing Australians’ physical activity levels and reducing those lifestyle factors that impact so negatively on people’s health. I would like to talk about a number of programs that are already underway in my electorate. The first one is 10,000 Steps, which has almost become part of our language these days. Most people are familiar with the idea that 10,000 steps is the minimum requirement of activity for a healthy lifestyle. It is now eight years since a collaboration between Central Queensland University, the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland and, also in partnership with Sports Medicine Australia and the National Heart Foundation, started the 10,000 Steps campaign. It was designed as a whole-of-community physical activity initiative, with the promotion of daily exercise being backed up by the research and evaluation capacity of the three participating universities.

Communities throughout Queensland, and now other states, have been encouraged to get people out walking their 10,000 steps each day as a way of keeping fit. It is genuinely a whole-of-community effort when the 10,000 Steps program is embraced by particular towns and communities. For example, in Rockhampton there are walking paths all around town telling people how many steps there are from one point to the other. The council has backed that up by extending the network of walking paths and bike paths and also by establishing shade structures and water stops to support people and facilitate the uptake of that activity.

Now that the program has been well established, Queensland Health provides the funding for 10,000 Steps which is run out of Central Queensland University in Rockhampton. CQ University’s health professionals, academics and graduates coordinate the dissemination of the 10,000 Steps model, assisting individuals and health professionals around Australia and the world. As I said, the 10,000 Steps project aims to increase the day-to-day activity of Australians by encouraging community members to use a step-counting pedometer to accumulate incidental physical activity as part of everyday living. Significant health and wellbeing benefits can be made simply by moving more every day, and 10,000 Steps can provide support, free resources and information. The project has been successful in motivating local communities, workplaces and individuals to increase their physical activity levels.

There are three categories of involvement in 10,000 Steps. The first one—under the Active Lifestyles banner—is for individuals. At the moment there are over 80,000 online members. Over 46 billion steps have been logged under the 10,000 Steps campaign; over 300 online members regularly participate in the monthly individual challenges; there are over 3,800 online walking buddies; and over 3,000 members have registered with the Million Milestone Challenge, with the highest accumulated step count being just over 55 million.

The other category is Active Workplaces. In that part of the program there are over 3,000 registered 10,000 Steps providers with more than 3,000 provider members also registered. Over 800 organisations have participated in Workplace Challenges. Over 36,000 members have participated in the Workplace Challenges and there have been over 6,000 teams registered with those Workplace Challenges.

Finally, there are Active Communities under the 10,000 Steps program. There are 15 of those communities throughout Queensland and interstate with over 230 stores stocking the 10,000 Steps pedometers and over 100 Queensland libraries lending pedometers to the public. So you can see that the program is really aimed at turning around people’s attitudes and habits and really making it easy for people and encouraging them to make exercise is part of their daily routine.

10,000 Steps was Australia’s first whole-of-community health promotion physical activity project funded by Queensland Health. As I said, it was back in 2001 that the Rockhampton region was chosen for the initial two-year trial. Rockhampton was chosen because the residents there showed typical levels of inactivity and had fairly high rates of things like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The initial 10,000 Steps Rockhampton project was found to be an exemplary model of an effective multistrategy, multisector physical activity project. As a result of the success in Rockhampton, Queensland Health has extended their funding and the project is currently rolling out as a sustainable statewide and beyond initiative.

The other project that I want to talk about is aimed at reducing binge drinking and the consequences of binge drinking. It is run by an Indigenous organisation known as Milbi, and over the years its primary focus has been the early intervention and prevention of alcohol, drugs and substance misuse. It provides accommodation for homeless people. It also provides accommodation for young people at risk of substance misuse and involved in court related matters, and it plays its role in reducing the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth and adults in the Queensland criminal justice system. It also has a great reputation for youth mentoring through a youth camp that it runs and it is able to provide psychological counselling.

Off the back of that great track record, Milbi was successful in obtaining funding under the National Binge Drinking Strategy and it has got a successful community project underway aimed at tackling preventable chronic diseases through the reduction of binge drinking in our community. The name of the project is the Club 500 Binge Drinking Awareness program and it is targeting Indigenous youth between the ages of 11 and 17 years, but also up to the age of 24 years.

Club 500 is about creating a way to reach out to 500 Indigenous youth and their families to be members of a social development club that will deliver newsletters, health information, youth and family activities and provide a community based safety net for young people who may not have good role models within and among their families and friends. The project features posters and flyers as a way of marketing the anti-binge drinking message. Milbi is also developing two video clips featuring the anti-binge drinking message to target Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth within that 18 to 24 age group. They are also conducting anti-binge drinking events such as concerts and school visits, something which is very important in addressing the problem of binge drinking, which spends too much time on the front pages of Rockhampton newspaper at the moment.

Finally, there is Kick Start Central Queensland, or Kick Start CQ. This is an initiative of the Rockhampton Regional Council. It provides a holistic and inclusive approach to the support of the community in encouraging them to get out and get active. The council has been doing a really great job with this initiative. This has only been going for a short time but it has got a very high profile and they have been running a lot of activities which have had great support. It is about getting members of the community to commit to becoming healthier and more active. Participants can pledge to reduce or increase a number of activities which can improve their health or wellbeing.

An example of one of the things that has been organised was the Kickstart CQ Kids Try-athlon on the weekend of 10 October. I went down to that and it was great to see how many kids, down to the age of four, were there with their families just having a go, swimming, cycling and running in the triathlon. That was followed up with us oldies having a fun run later in the afternoon—the Rockhampton Road Runners 25th Anniversary Run—which was sponsored by Kickstart CQ. There was also the Pink Ribbon Breakfast a couple of weeks ago; the Netta Program for children aged five to 10, introducing them to netball, the Get Wet Weekend, with coaching by qualified Surfing Queensland coaches; Exposing Diabetes, which was set up to enable people to learn from experts and get practical and motivational tips about managing diabetes; and also Lighten Up to a Healthy Lifestyle, which is a group of adults who want to improve their health through changing their lifestyle. These events underline the fact that this is a whole-of-community challenge, but it is one that the federal government is seeking to lead in with our support and with funding.

I mention just one more: the Shape Up Shed in Collinsville. Collinsville is a small rural mining community in the very north of Capricornia. The Shape Up Shed was opened earlier this year with the help of federal government funding and it has provided a great facility in that community to bring people together to get some qualified exercise activities under way. When I was in Collinsville last week I was told that there are 60 members and that they are going to come to me asking for more money for a bigger facility within a short space of time, so people in Collinsville have certainly got the message. The federal government has been very happy to facilitate the take-up of healthy, active lifestyles in Collinsville and will continue to help them out in the future.

There is no doubt that we have a big job ahead of us to make preventative health care the centre of our health system. Australia is now getting the leadership and the funding it needs to tackle the complex and growing challenge of preventable chronic diseases caused by smoking, diet, alcohol, obesity and poor lifestyle choices. I commend this bill to the House as one more step in tackling that challenge.

Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to sum up debate on the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009. The introduction of Medicare by Labor in 1984 provides a lasting legacy for Australia: we have a health system with a wonderful foundation. It is not just something that those in the Hawke Labor government are proud but also something that we are very proud of to this day. I hope the establishment of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency will also provide a lasting legacy. But after a decade of idleness and neglect by the coalition, where it squandered the benefits of the resources boom, underfunded public hospitals and left the health workforce to atrophy, our health system is in definite need of reform to deal with the issues of the 21st century.

The Rudd government has an ambitious three-pronged reform agenda. First, the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission has reported to the government its 123 recommendations for reforming the acute hospital system in particular but with reference to the interrelationship with aged, dental and primary care and the need for a much greater focus on preventative health to keep people out of hospital. Secondly, the Minister for Health and Ageing released the draft of Australia’s first National Primary Healthcare National Strategy in August. The draft strategy sets out the building blocks and priority areas for modernising the delivery of front-line health care. Thirdly, in September the minister released the final report of the National Preventative Health Taskforce. With its initial policy priorities of tobacco, alcohol and obesity, it makes a detailed series of findings and recommendations on its prescription for making Australia the healthiest nation by 2020. A key part of its recommendations is the establishment of an infrastructure to guide, oversee and build the evidence base for ever more effective preventative health measures. The Australian National Preventive Health Agency is this infrastructure.

The government has already shown leadership in preventative health, demonstrated by the unprecedented $872 million COAG commitment. The establishment of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency will embed preventative health thinking and action permanently as an enduring institution into the future. Too often in the past individuals, communities and governments have focused on the issues of treating people after they have become sick. To put it another way, for far too long we have focused on the need for an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, not a fence at the top. The work of the new agency will help make our health system more sustainable. It will boost Australia’s productivity through a healthier workforce that can contribute more to the growth of our economy. Most important of all is the reduced human cost: it will ensure that we have longer, healthier and happier lives. This is a reform of which the Minister for Health and Ageing and I are very proud. The minister and I would like to thank the many public health agencies, like the Public Health Association of Australia, who have been so supportive of the establishment of the agency.

There is strong consensus that we need to bring together the best expertise in the country and we need to engage employers, businesses, other sectors and the wider community in prevention. I would like to thank all the honourable members who have made contributions to this debate. The member for Dickson raised three issues. First, will the agency become intrusive in future? The agency’s role is to provide the best available evidence not just to federal and state health ministers but indeed to all Australians. The Australian people deserve the best available information and evidence to assist them in making their lifestyle choices. This is not intrusion and it is not directive. It is empowering them to make informed decisions. Secondly, he drew a very long bow and tried to make a connection between spending on social marketing to promote health whilst we are making savings by making cataract payments better reflect the true cost. He called this duplicitous. To say you are for preventative health but against acting on it is duplicitous. The comparison is false. What the member for Dickson wants us to do is take money away from stopping people getting sick and put it straight into the pockets of ophthalmologists, so letting people get sicker to make eye surgeons richer.

The National Preventative Health Taskforce makes it clear that social marketing campaigns do make a difference, particularly when the campaigns are coupled with a range of comprehensive range of programs to underpin the message. Social marketing campaigns in relation to smoking, drink driving and seat belts spring to mind. We have also funded the Don’t Turn a Night Out into a Nightmare campaign as one part of the multitiered national binge drinking strategy. This agency will be a component of the COAG $872 million preventative health package.

Thirdly, the member for Dickson talks about a lack of engagement with industry. This is not correct. In fact, the CEO of the Australian Food and Grocery Council was on the task force, and I would like to thank Kate Carnell for her effort and contribution. Business and industry have been consulted by the task force. The agency will have an advisory council and, while the bill is not prescriptive about business representation, the explanatory memorandum does note that this may include business.

The member for Pearce raised two issues. Firstly, will the outcomes of the agency be measurable? I would respond by pointing out that the CEO will be responsible to the Australian Health Ministers Conference for performance against agreed triennial strategic and annual operational plans. Secondly, she notes that the government has not yet responded to the national prevention task force. The Prime Minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing are currently road-testing the recommendations of the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission in conjunction with the recommendations of the task force, and we will respond comprehensively via COAG later this year. However, this is a recommendation we are keen to proceed with now so that the agency can be established by January 2010 and commence its very important work.

As the Minister for Health and Ageing noted when the bill was introduced, the agency is a COAG mandated body that is being established to support all health ministers—federal, state and territory—in tackling the complex challenges posed by preventable chronic disease. The agency’s role will be to provide evidence based policy advice to health and other ministers interested in preventative health and to administer social marketing programs and other national preventative health programs which it may be tasked with by the health ministers. The agency will also have responsibility for stakeholder consultation and overseeing surveillance and research activities. In carrying out its roles and responsibilities, the agency will help make our health system sustainable in the long term and help ensure that Australia does not go backwards in health status.

It is important that the bill is passed in the spring sittings to allow the agency to commence operations on 1 January 2010 and start benefiting all Australians. The minister and I would also like to thank all of those who have directly or indirectly been involved in the development of this very important legislation. The minister and I look forward to seeing Australia’s agency operation changing Australia’s health for the better into the long term.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.