Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers) Share this | Hansard source

I did not respond to one of Senator Xenophon’s points in his earlier contribution. Senator Xenophon said something along the lines that you cannot see the downside if this information is released and the public can see everything as it is coming through the estimates process et cetera. My point is that the net result of Senator Xenophon’s amendment would happen prior to that point and that potentially there could be a change in the type of advice that is being provided. So no, I do not disagree that would be the downside if everything is released. I cannot disagree with that. Yes, the public will be able to see. My concern is that the behaviour may change prior to the document being written. That is the point I am trying to make.

With respect to Senator Fierravanti-Wells, I am advised that every document that the task force commissioned was published. There were three background papers that were written in the early days of the operation of the task force. They were on alcohol, tobacco and obesity. The purpose of those background papers was to inform the members of the task force, to give them a basis and an understanding across the breadth of the issues that they were going to deal with; so that information was available to inform them. But every document that was commissioned by the task force was proudly published by our government so that the information could be provided to the community.

We are a government that is interested in changing the health of this nation. To do that, information should definitely be made available because, as you said, information will potentially change behaviour. It is quibbling, to be frank, to be focused on three background papers that were part of the process of getting to a monumental document, which was the report of the preventive health task force. Hopefully in history, there will be a point in time that health writers look back to and say, ‘That is the time when Australia changed the way we deal particularly with alcohol, tobacco and obesity.’