Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

I welcome the opportunity to add my voice to those already heard in this place on Appropriation Bills numbers 1 and 2, and in doing so will also make some observations on Appropriation Bill number 5.

At the foundation of these bills is Labor’s commitment to the electorate.

These bills represent the Government’s determination to deliver on the promises made to the Australian people.

In doing so, the Rudd Labor Government is returning decency and confidence to the democratic process—confidence which was sorely tried by our predecessors.

WorkChoices, education cuts, children overboard, disinvestment in skills training and infrastructure, non-core promises, a complete disregard for climate change and the list goes on.

Unlike the former government that neglected vital nation-building investment, this Government is determined take the hard steps, do the hard yards, to ensure a safe, prosperous and equitable future for all.

As the Treasurer explained on Budget night, the principles on which our package of interconnected, coherent reforms is based are fourfold:

• security for working families,
• adhering to our commitments,
• investment for the future and
• fiscal responsibility.

This Government is committed to delivering its Working Families Support Package.

Over four years, $55 billion will be expended on targeted programs in tax reform, child care, housing, education, and related matters including dental health - not to mention supported accommodation for disabled people with aged carers.

This Government is investing in the skills and education sector, hospitals and health, infrastructure particularly water, to which I will return and sustainability

And this Labor Government is looking to the future in a way that the previous government could not possibly have contemplated.

Through these bills, we propose to the Australian people a Building Australia Fund to alleviate the neglect of critical transport and communication infrastructure, an Education Investment Fund to finance capital works in our dilapidated education and vocational education sector and a Health and Hospital Fund to ensure renewal of hospital facilities, investment in technology and the fostering of research projects and facilities.

These bills are economically responsible and have been formulated to reprioritise spending away from ad hoc, electorally-expedient spending to sustainable growth and the reduction of inflation.

Appropriation Bills numbers 1 and 2 represent two of the principal items of legislation supporting the Rudd Labor Government’s first Budget.

The major items provided for in Appropriation Bill number 5 are education and infrastructure in this instance water.

As a proud representative of South Australia, and as a former educator, both have particular resonance for me, and that is why I address these items now.

I turn first to education.

A strong and appropriately resourced education sector is vital to Australia’s future, both locally and, of course, in terms of our international competitiveness. One of the cornerstones of our future well-being as a community and of our economic security is, undoubtedly, investment in education.

OECD research clearly demonstrates the sliding scale of the neglect, the downgrading of facilities, and in certain instances the wilful failure to act of the previous government in this particular area the result being the crisis we are dealing with in the education sector today.

In the decade since 1995, Australia was the only OECD country to effectively disinvest in the tertiary sector - just when additional funds were so desperately needed!

As I said in this place just prior to the last election, to give a young Australian the chance to get ahead, to maximise his or her potential, to take a valued place in a forward-looking, contemporary society, is one of the most important things a Government (can) do. And the Rudd Labor Government is acting now to alleviate the past capital disinvestment and underinvestment in this crucial sector.

The Government will provide an additional $500 million in the current financial year to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for distribution among Australian universities. The funds will be allocated to capital investment in five priority areas.

These areas include:

• IT communications in research and teaching,
• laboratories,
• libraries and places to study,
• teaching spaces and
• investment in critical student amenities.

I wholeheartedly commend this measure, as I do the water initiatives that formed the greater part of the balance of the appropriation.

The Government does not resile on its promise to tackle our water crisis. Indeed, it has already taken enormous strides in doing so.

Through Appropriations Bill number 5, the Government has provided an additional $112.3 million to the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts to fund a variety of water initiatives. These initiatives reflect the Government’s recognition that the water situation is absolutely critical and that urgent action must be taken.

The Rudd Labor Government is determined to act on this country’s needs for the future and that includes addressing areas of health that have so seriously been neglected by the previous government.

Today I speak of an issue that is having an increasingly adverse effect, not only on the physical and social health of our community, but also on our economy and the future productivity of our nation.

I refer, of course, to the issue of obesity.

Every person present in this chamber is aware of the escalating need to confront this issue.

But the Rudd Government understands that obesity is an issue which, if left unaddressed, would have the capacity to burden our health system with an explosion of preventable diseases.

Disturbingly, latest available Bureau of Statistics survey figures released in January 2008 show that in 2005, 7.4 million people aged 18 years and over were classified as overweight or obese that’s 54 per cent of the adult population! And these figures represent an increase from 5.4 million adults, or 45 per cent of the adult population, in 1995.

Figures adjusted to reflect differences between the age structures of indigenous and non-indigenous populations during the same survey period indicate that indigenous adults were more than twice as likely to be overweight or obese than non-indigenous adults.

Just as alarmingly, one in four Australian children is now overweight or obese.

What does the future hold for these children, these indigenous people, these present and potential contributors to our common good?

The direct consequences of overweight and obesity may include, among other conditions, coronary heart disease, diabetes, breast and other cancers, gallstones, degenerative joint disease, hypertension and obstructive sleep apnoea.

And the burden of chronic disease does not fall solely on the individual. An Access Economics study carried out also in 2005 showed that annual productivity loss from obesity related conditions was approximately $1.7 billion, with the net aggregate cost of the impact on the health system, carer costs, and the burden of disease on the community valued at an additional $17.2 billion the total, a staggering $21 billion.

We’re talking now about loss of inclusion through compromised ability to participate in community life, and cost to business not only through productivity loss but through lower participation and higher absenteeism.

The World Health Organisation reports that obesity is a global epidemic. Certainly obesity has reached epidemic proportions in Australia.

Physical inactivity and television viewing time have been shown to be the strongest correlates with measures of obesity, according to the most recent report of the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study.

Poor diet, and our long work hours combined with sedentary lifestyles, are significant contributors.

Those who would argue this assertion have only to look around their electorates to see its proof.

And if that is not sufficient, I’m sure that Senators will be interested to receive some information drawn from, and ancillary to, the Annual Report of the National Health and Medical Research Council for 2006-2007.

Alive to the dangers inherent in an epidemic of obesity-related diseases, the NHMRC has allocated some $70 million to obesity related research during the period 2000-2007. This is the greatest area of cumulative expenditure in the five areas of nutrition- related issues over that period.

Just a few days prior to the release of that Annual Report on 4 February last, the Minister for Health and Ageing announced that in the coming year the Government would invest in a number of new medical and health research projects.

These are intended to allow Australian researchers to pursue their areas of study and pursue collaborative work both in Australia and overseas.

As Minister Roxon noted:

‘We will...ensure that all Australians have access to the best possible research in relation to the critical health and medical conditions facing them today... Improving preventative health services and chronic disease management through targeted research will deliver better outcomes for Australians and their families’.

Among other key priorities set out on the occasion of the opening of this Parliament just four months ago, reform focusing on the area of obesity is specifically looking at the integration of preventative health care and improved health outcomes.

National leadership and State co-operation are key elements in the action to be taken, and the involvement of health professionals, sporting groups, local government, industry and the community is welcomed.

The first steps have been taken. Already the Minister has confirmed the Government’s investment of $25.6 million in our ‘Healthy Kids Check’, to be introduced over the next four years.

The Healthy Kids Check will be delivered by GPs or practice nurses, or by local councils and community health centres, in conjunction with or after each child’s four-year immunisation.

The program will benefit around 255,000 four year old children across the nation, and will provide a base line for future analysis of health indicators.

The need for follow-up services, particularly any services not available under existing referral arrangements, will also be monitored.

This initiative has been widely welcomed by a broad range of interested individuals and groups, including the Australian General Practice Network.

We will also see the distribution of the ‘Healthy Habits for Life Guide’, providing achievable and accessible ideas for parents keen to keep their young children healthy and active.

And the funding of school-based kitchen and garden infrastructure will be piloted in 190 primary schools across Australia to support the curriculum-based nutrition and gardening program ‘Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden’.

The Rudd Labor Government will also provide $1.7 million over four years to encourage community initiatives that combat obesity.

By contrast to the masterful inactivity of the previous government, Labor is demonstrating its commitment to action, elevating this very serious matter to the front line of our national preventative health strategy.

This government knows that long term policy is necessary for infrastructure, education, climate change, and for tackling disadvantage.

This is a government committed to the long term objective of building the best educated, best trained and best skilled workforce in the world.

From the Education Revolution, the high speed Broadband Network, the Working Families Support Package to the National Health and Hospitals Reform plan and the many other initiatives demonstrated...this is clearly evidence of a government that acts now planning for a secure future for all Australians.