Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no doubt that health is an issue that dominates our kitchen table discussions, nowhere more so than in my electorate of Braddon. We are all aware of the growing demands on the provision of health services, and that is obviously for a variety of reasons. There is a growing demand and pressure on service delivery across the board—attracting, training and maintaining a sufficient workforce in particular, and nowhere more so than in rural and regional Australia—and also on the increasing equipment, material and capital costs associated with the provision of health services. Indeed, in relation to the latter, the provision of MRI equipment and PET scanners are special examples of this. Other speakers have highlighted this. I was very pleased that federal Labor, in its health and wellbeing policies for Tasmania in general and on the north-west coast in particular, honoured the MRI licensing commitment of the former government for the north-west coast.

A $3.5 million PET scanner is being set up in Hobart to service the state. It is a very valuable and very necessary service. In addition, federal Labor offered Tasmania a $50 million health and wellbeing package above and beyond the normal health agreement funding. I am very pleased to be able to put on the record some of those health initiatives, particularly for the north-west coast. Most important—and we share this with the rest of Australia—is Labor’s commitment to reduce elective surgery waiting lists. I was very pleased with the additional $8 million that was given to Tasmania for an additional 895 procedures to try and tackle these long waiting lists. That is something we do not need to be blaming each other for. We just need to do something about it.

I was very pleased with the Commonwealth’s reinvigoration of the dental health scheme, particularly for my electorate of Braddon, which, unfortunately, has one of the highest waiting lists for dental services, and the $81 million commitment to try to get more nurses back into the hospital system. More specifically, on the north-west coast I was very pleased to be part of a collective that lobbied federal Labor to provide services—for example, the $7.7 million commitment to a new cancer treatment unit, preferably on the north-west coast.

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