Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Health Insurance Amendment (Provider Number Review) Bill 2007 because it gives me a chance to reflect on the importance of health in our community and how we enjoy the benefits of a wonderful health system. Many of us take good health for granted, but unfortunately some do not enjoy the blessing that is good health and are not able to lead an active life and participate fully in the community.

Last Saturday I attended a function to raise money for research into motor neurone disease. It was a very successful function attended by over 200 people. At that function they succeeded in raising in the order of $10,000, which is to be matched by the Rotary Medical Research Fund. This is going to mean a substantial boost to the funding that is being allocated to the research for motor neurone disease. I would like to compliment the Rotary clubs of Coffs Harbour, in particular Coffs Harbour Daybreak and Coffs Harbour Rotary club, for putting on this fabulous evening.

The catalyst for this function was a local Coffs Harbour resident, Steve Buckley. He is a local Rotarian, a small business man, a father and a very fine citizen. Steve, through no fault of his own, has been struck down by this terrible disease. Steve is in his mid-40s, like many of us in the parliament, and he is a fine father and a great citizen. He certainly did not deserve to be struck down by this disease. He and his devoted wife, Sharon, and their kids are showing great courage in dealing with this disease. It is a disease that we need to learn more about; it is very much a mystery.

We are very much conditioned to the thought that when we go to the doctor we will receive a prescription and whatever ailment that we have will be miraculously cured by the services of our fine medical professionals. Unfortunately that is not always the case. Motor neurone disease is a very dreadful example of just that. Steve will not see his kids grow up and he will not be enjoying life as we know it for all that much longer. He is currently dependent on a feeding tube to survive. This is indeed a great tragedy for a very energetic young man who was a musician in the local swing band and a very active contributor to the Rotary movement.

In addition to those types of diseases that we do not know enough about and that we are unable to tackle, there are a wide range of problems that we do know a lot about and for which we do have the answers, yet we ignore the signals that are being sent out. Obesity, smoking, alcohol abuse and lack of exercise are the sorts of areas in which we can make great strides with very little effort. They are areas in which, through lifestyle change, we can achieve huge improvements in health outcomes at minimal cost.

I was interested to see a report by Access Economics with regard to diabetes in Australia in which it put a price on the cost of obesity in Australia in 2005. That cost is $21 billion, and that is nearly 44 per cent of the government’s total spending on health care in the current financial year. The costs of obesity are spread across a number of portfolios, of course, but I would suggest that that is a really shocking comparison. That figure, $21 billion, is twice the Medicare funding for 2005-06 and it covers productivity losses, health costs, carer costs, lost tax revenue, welfare payments and the cost of lost wellbeing. But, broadly speaking, obesity is a problem that we could solve relatively quickly and it is a problem that, if solved, would yield huge benefits for the community.

There are great arguments to be put forward for prevention in this area. Estimates show that 20 to 25 per cent of Australian children are overweight or obese. These children are not getting the message of good food. We are making some good strides in this area, and certainly initiatives such as healthy food in canteens are very welcome ones. But it is regrettable that, despite these sorts of efforts, some of our children are slipping through the cracks. Some of our children are very influenced by the never-ending avalanche of advertising in the fast-food area that puts forward notions of fatty foods, high-sugar foods and all those foods that children like to eat but that are not necessarily good for them if eaten to excess. While the types of fast foods that are advertised on the television may be reasonable in moderation, unfortunately too many of our children are eating those types of foods to excess.

Another area of great concern is the fight against cancer. Professor Hill, the President-elect of the International Union Against Cancer, has pointed out that 40 per cent of the 88,000 cancers diagnosed every year in Australia could have been prevented by healthy lifestyles established in early life. I acknowledge and welcome the $116 million Healthy and Active Australia initiative. We need to recognise that we are up against some real challenges in this area, including the sort of advertising that is putting forward notions of high-sugar and high-fat foods. We are up against lifestyle factors, in that we all lead very busy lives and it can be difficult to find time to have enough exercise and to eat as well as we should.

Tobacco use is another area of concern. The cost of tobacco use in Australia has been estimated at $21 billion, remarkably similar to the cost of obesity. And, again, this is a health problem which is readily preventable. I know there are many people who are attempting to reduce or to give up smoking. I think the important element there is that the benefits of giving up smoking commence from the first day. As soon as someone is able to kick the habit they are immediately receiving the benefits of withdrawing from that smoking habit. Smoking has been responsible for a range of problems in our community: heart disease, lung cancer, irritation of the eyes and nose, sudden infant death syndrome, lower birth weight in babies, bronchitis, pneumonia, lung and airway infections, asthma exacerbation, middle ear disease and respiratory symptoms—a whole range of illnesses which are contributed to by smoking. I see in the chamber now the Minister for Ageing, who is a keen advocate in the fight to reduce the rate of smoking in order to achieve improved health outcomes.

I have had relayed to me the story of a heavy smoker who, as a result of smoking, had undergone intensive heart surgery. Of course he had been advised to stop smoking. He was receiving physiotherapy in the weeks after the surgery but then he confessed to his physiotherapist that he was smoking again, and heavily. This gentleman had undergone some very invasive surgery, he had received very intensive medical treatment at cost to the taxpayers and yet he was not helping himself. It is a real concern that people are unable to break these habits and take responsibility for themselves and their own health outcomes and, in doing so, are costing the community a lot of money and reducing their possible health outcomes. It is a real problem. We certainly need to do a lot more in this area. How would the physiotherapist have felt as a medical professional trying to help this person only to find that he had again taken up smoking—the very cause of the problem for which he was being treated? I think our community should expect a degree of self-help from people who are enjoying the benefit of the very good services that our medical professionals can provide. It is absolutely futile if people can continue such a habit. It is hard to comprehend that when someone had endured that sort of invasive surgery there would not be a lesson in it for them and that they would not be able to quit of their own accord far more easily. So it is a matter of great concern.

Alcohol abuse is another problem, and not only in the health area. Alcohol is a major contributing factor in traffic accidents and in areas such as domestic violence. Abuse of alcohol not only has direct health concerns associated with it; it also produces a whole range of other social problems. So there are some lessons in this for us as a community. We really need to try much harder in the area of prevention. It is an adage that ‘prevention is better than cure’, but I think we can make some really great gains if we put a lot more effort at the preventative end. We can make some really great gains by helping people to combat obesity, to reduce or eliminate smoking and to deal with the issue of alcohol in a responsible way.

We should certainly be pursuing those goals much more actively. That is not to say that the state and federal governments have been inactive but I believe we can do a lot more. We can leap further in this regard. We can certainly, quickly and effectively, start to reduce our hospital waiting lists—not necessarily by putting more resources into acute treatment in our hospital wards but by having more effective preventive methods in place, by having much more effective preventive strategies which will stop people being admitted to hospital in the first place. That is something on which we should be working much harder.

If we look at the area of cardiovascular disease, the facts are really quite astounding. The problem of cardiovascular disease is really quite staggering, the causes of which are well documented. I would like to reflect on a few for a moment. An Australian dies every 10 minutes from cardiovascular disease. Thirty-eight per cent of all deaths from stroke and heart failure have cardiovascular disease as a major contributing factor. Of the 50,292 people who died in 2004, 60 per cent had not reached average life expectancy, which was itself largely driven by cardiovascular disease mortality. We know what the factors are, but for some reason we seem to be ignoring the warnings. As I said, prevention is better than cure. We need to work much harder in the area of preventive medicine. We need to be very much focused on adjusting lifestyle, getting people to take responsibility for their actions, making sure that they take the steps they need to take to ensure the right health outcomes. Probably the most effective health practitioners for many people in the community are themselves. Rather than depending on our health professionals to cure the ills, it is very much up to the individual to take the lead on this.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this bill. The issue of preventive medicine is very important, and it is one on which we need to work a lot harder.

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