Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister advise the House on the latest developments in building a national e-health system? Are there any alternative proposals?

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his question. He has a particular interest in the establishment of a national e-health system, because the division of GPs in his electorate has been leading the way across the country with a very advanced system. But it operates only within their smaller area and they have hopes of expanding it.

GPs in the member for Moreton’s electorate and across the country do understand that an e-health system will help revolutionise the delivery of health care in Australia. It is why the budget includes $467 million to roll out personally controlled electronic health records for all Australians from 2012-13. Patients will for the first time be able to access their key health information when and where they need it. Patients will no longer have to remember every detail of their care history, medications or test results, and they will not have to retell it to every health professional that they see.

It is estimated that two to three per cent of hospital admissions in Australia are linked to medication errors. This equates to 190,000 admissions each year and costs our health system a staggering $660 million. On top of that, about eight per cent of medical errors are because of inadequate patient information. So it is not a stretch to say that this investment in e-health will help to save lives, reduce medical errors, keep people out of hospital and save money for the taxpayer. Given all of this, it is unsurprising that patients, clinicians and stakeholders have all supported this reform. The AMA, the AGPN, the ANF, the Consumer Health Forum and many more have all said that the e-health system is a key building block to create a 21st-century health system. Everyone, it seems, except for the two people in furious discussion across the table, thinks that this is a long-overdue investment.

I must emphasise to you that it is only today’s Liberal Party who are against e-health. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party announced last week that they would slash funding for this initiative. We see them mimicking their time in government. A billion dollars was slashed from public hospitals when the Leader of the Opposition was the Minister for Health and Ageing. Now nearly another billion dollars would be slashed from the health system, affecting GPs and e-health, under the opposition’s plan.

The reason I emphasise that it is today’s Liberal Party that oppose e-health is that not very long ago there were people on the other side of the chamber who thought that it was very important. I thought the chamber might like to know that in the Leader of the Opposition’s very first speech as health minister he chose to address the topic of e-health. In fact, in 2003, when he gave his first speech as the new health minister, he gave his government five years to implement a national scheme. He said that failure to do it in five years ‘would be an indictment against everyone in the health system, including the government’. Indeed, it is an indictment of the former government. We can just add it to the list of other indictments—a billion dollars out of hospitals, a cap on GP training places and now the failure to deliver an e-health system.

I think that the chamber deserves to hear just a little bit more. In August 2007, the then health minister gave another speech. He referred to his first speech as health minister. He said:

In November 2003, my first scripted speech as Health Minister concerned e-health. I stated that an electronic health record, communicated electronically among health care providers, would mean safer, better, more convenient and more efficient health care.

I could not agree more. He went on:

For doctors and other professionals, it meant less repetitive taking of histories; for governments and other funders, it meant less duplication of diagnostic tests; for patients, it meant more access to their health records and more capacity to manage their own health; for everyone, it meant fewer potentially disastrous mistakes because of avoidable ignorance.

These were carefully scripted speeches, so we know that Mr Abbott absolutely believed every word of them. The only problem was that ‘Phoney Tony’ did not act on that belief. He did not deliver any e-health records—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will withdraw that remark.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will refer to members by their parliamentary titles.

Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The only problem was that the Leader of the Opposition, as the health minister, said all of these things about electronic health records and failed to deliver one iota.

I can tell you that the member for Dickson is also on the record as offering bipartisan support for e-health. He even had a swipe at his own leader. Last September he said that the lack of e-health was ‘a very poor reflection of the last decade of discussion’. I wonder who was in government for the last decade? The member for Dickson also said in March:

… Nicola Roxon and I don’t always have a perfect made in heaven relationship, but nonetheless, when I first sat down with Nicola coming into this portfolio only six months ago I gave her an undertaking that we would—on the issue of e-health—provide bipartisan support …

There goes that offer! How erratic are they, in that year after year they could commit to e-health, when they got into opposition they could commit to e-health and then, last week, they slashed half a billion dollars from their budget for this necessary revolutionary change to our healthcare system? One day they are for e-health; one day they are against it. It is pretty hard to know what the Leader of the Opposition thinks, but we certainly know what he did about e-health—absolutely nothing.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I indicate to the House that in the upper galleries on my left and right we have grades 5 and 6 from Wattle Park Primary School. A proud parent, the Deputy Speaker, the member for Chisholm, has indicated this to me. I welcome them to the House.