Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The government opposes this motion. We oppose it on the basis that there are already mechanisms that exist to undertake the analysis that the motion contemplates. Trusted organisations including the ABS, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Department of Health and Aged Care work together to ensure that we have a robust system of reporting mortality and morbidity at the national level. This work, of course, is informed by the work undertaken by state and territory health departments in their disease surveillance and health-reporting frameworks.

Our existing framework of disease surveillance and reporting has been built up over decades and continues to provide the data required by public health experts to undertake the detailed epidemiological research into issues such as social determinants of health that is contemplated in this motion.