Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is great to join with my colleagues today to support the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2009 and great to see the focus on preventive health, which Australia is well overdue for. The Rudd Labor government is committed to improving the health of all Australians through policies that deal with the challenges of access, affordability and the overall cost of providing quality health care. We are doing that in the face of evidence that warns us that those aims will be hard to achieve in the coming decades due to the increased demands and costs associated with the ageing population and increasing rates of chronic disease. That is why we place such priority on preventive health policies and this bill is an integral part of that important strategy.

We recognise that our health system should be as much about keeping people in good health as it is about treating them when they are sick. The focus on preventive health, however, involves a major change in the way we organise and fund our health system, and in the way people think about their lifestyles and personal responsibility for their wellbeing. That requires national leadership, something that was recognised and recommended by both the Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and the National Preventative Health Task Force. The government sees the Australian National Preventive Health Agency as a key part of the national effort towards driving those essential changes in the way we look at health.

The bill before us today establishes the Australian National Preventive Health Agency to support Australian health ministers in tackling the complex and growing challenge of preventable chronic disease. The bill specifies the functions, governance and structure of the agency, including the interaction with the Commonwealth Minister for Health and Ageing and the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference. An important part of the structure of the Preventive Health Agency is the advisory council, which will be made up of between seven and 11 members, all with preventive health expertise in a variety of disciplines and from a variety of sectors.

The Australian National Preventive Health Agency takes its place within a much broader preventive health effort being undertaken through a historic partnership on preventive health between Commonwealth and state governments. One year ago COAG signed off on the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health. That partnership represents an initial $872 million investment in preventive health measures, developing strategies to inform people of the risks of obesity, smoking and drinking, and encouraging people to make choices that will lead to better long-term health outcomes. That partnership agreement included the establishment of this Preventive Health Agency.

COAG recognised that supporting or enabling infrastructure such as the Preventive Health Agency, and research and surveillance capacity, was required to support the Commonwealth and the states in their attempts to tackle the complex challenges associated with preventable chronic conditions. It is in this context that the National Preventive Health Agency is being established in order to support Australian health ministers as they attempt to achieve the outcomes specified in the prevention partnership signed off at COAG, particularly those around healthy weight, physical activity, healthy eating and smoking.

A key initial role of the Preventive Health Agency will be to provide the leadership, coordination and monitoring required to support the successful implementation of initiatives funded through the prevention partnership, including $692 million out of that $872 million I mentioned earlier, to provide interventions to help Australians to modify their lifestyles. Beyond this, the Preventive Health Agency will more broadly support Australian health ministers in meeting the challenges posed by preventable chronic conditions and the lifestyle related risk factors.

Under the prevention partnership, the Commonwealth will provide funding of $133.2 million over four years for the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. Of this, $17.6 million will be provided for the establishment and maintenance of the agency. Other funds will be used for social marketing—an amount of $102 million—and there is $13.1 million to support preventative health research, particularly that which focuses on the translation of research into practice. There is also money for audit workforce availability and to develop a strategy to address any identified gaps in that workforce. Subject to the passage of this bill, the agency will commence operations on 1 January 2010. That is important as funds for its establishment and for a range of measures commence in the 2009-2010 financial year.

We know that the challenges surrounding chronic disease and lifestyle risk factors are very large. There are already, of course, numerous programs across the country aimed at increasing Australians’ physical activity levels and reducing those lifestyle factors that impact so negatively on people’s health. I would like to talk about a number of programs that are already underway in my electorate. The first one is 10,000 Steps, which has almost become part of our language these days. Most people are familiar with the idea that 10,000 steps is the minimum requirement of activity for a healthy lifestyle. It is now eight years since a collaboration between Central Queensland University, the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland and, also in partnership with Sports Medicine Australia and the National Heart Foundation, started the 10,000 Steps campaign. It was designed as a whole-of-community physical activity initiative, with the promotion of daily exercise being backed up by the research and evaluation capacity of the three participating universities.

Communities throughout Queensland, and now other states, have been encouraged to get people out walking their 10,000 steps each day as a way of keeping fit. It is genuinely a whole-of-community effort when the 10,000 Steps program is embraced by particular towns and communities. For example, in Rockhampton there are walking paths all around town telling people how many steps there are from one point to the other. The council has backed that up by extending the network of walking paths and bike paths and also by establishing shade structures and water stops to support people and facilitate the uptake of that activity.

Now that the program has been well established, Queensland Health provides the funding for 10,000 Steps which is run out of Central Queensland University in Rockhampton. CQ University’s health professionals, academics and graduates coordinate the dissemination of the 10,000 Steps model, assisting individuals and health professionals around Australia and the world. As I said, the 10,000 Steps project aims to increase the day-to-day activity of Australians by encouraging community members to use a step-counting pedometer to accumulate incidental physical activity as part of everyday living. Significant health and wellbeing benefits can be made simply by moving more every day, and 10,000 Steps can provide support, free resources and information. The project has been successful in motivating local communities, workplaces and individuals to increase their physical activity levels.

There are three categories of involvement in 10,000 Steps. The first one—under the Active Lifestyles banner—is for individuals. At the moment there are over 80,000 online members. Over 46 billion steps have been logged under the 10,000 Steps campaign; over 300 online members regularly participate in the monthly individual challenges; there are over 3,800 online walking buddies; and over 3,000 members have registered with the Million Milestone Challenge, with the highest accumulated step count being just over 55 million.

The other category is Active Workplaces. In that part of the program there are over 3,000 registered 10,000 Steps providers with more than 3,000 provider members also registered. Over 800 organisations have participated in Workplace Challenges. Over 36,000 members have participated in the Workplace Challenges and there have been over 6,000 teams registered with those Workplace Challenges.

Finally, there are Active Communities under the 10,000 Steps program. There are 15 of those communities throughout Queensland and interstate with over 230 stores stocking the 10,000 Steps pedometers and over 100 Queensland libraries lending pedometers to the public. So you can see that the program is really aimed at turning around people’s attitudes and habits and really making it easy for people and encouraging them to make exercise is part of their daily routine.

10,000 Steps was Australia’s first whole-of-community health promotion physical activity project funded by Queensland Health. As I said, it was back in 2001 that the Rockhampton region was chosen for the initial two-year trial. Rockhampton was chosen because the residents there showed typical levels of inactivity and had fairly high rates of things like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The initial 10,000 Steps Rockhampton project was found to be an exemplary model of an effective multistrategy, multisector physical activity project. As a result of the success in Rockhampton, Queensland Health has extended their funding and the project is currently rolling out as a sustainable statewide and beyond initiative.

The other project that I want to talk about is aimed at reducing binge drinking and the consequences of binge drinking. It is run by an Indigenous organisation known as Milbi, and over the years its primary focus has been the early intervention and prevention of alcohol, drugs and substance misuse. It provides accommodation for homeless people. It also provides accommodation for young people at risk of substance misuse and involved in court related matters, and it plays its role in reducing the overrepresentation of Indigenous youth and adults in the Queensland criminal justice system. It also has a great reputation for youth mentoring through a youth camp that it runs and it is able to provide psychological counselling.

Off the back of that great track record, Milbi was successful in obtaining funding under the National Binge Drinking Strategy and it has got a successful community project underway aimed at tackling preventable chronic diseases through the reduction of binge drinking in our community. The name of the project is the Club 500 Binge Drinking Awareness program and it is targeting Indigenous youth between the ages of 11 and 17 years, but also up to the age of 24 years.

Club 500 is about creating a way to reach out to 500 Indigenous youth and their families to be members of a social development club that will deliver newsletters, health information, youth and family activities and provide a community based safety net for young people who may not have good role models within and among their families and friends. The project features posters and flyers as a way of marketing the anti-binge drinking message. Milbi is also developing two video clips featuring the anti-binge drinking message to target Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth within that 18 to 24 age group. They are also conducting anti-binge drinking events such as concerts and school visits, something which is very important in addressing the problem of binge drinking, which spends too much time on the front pages of Rockhampton newspaper at the moment.

Finally, there is Kick Start Central Queensland, or Kick Start CQ. This is an initiative of the Rockhampton Regional Council. It provides a holistic and inclusive approach to the support of the community in encouraging them to get out and get active. The council has been doing a really great job with this initiative. This has only been going for a short time but it has got a very high profile and they have been running a lot of activities which have had great support. It is about getting members of the community to commit to becoming healthier and more active. Participants can pledge to reduce or increase a number of activities which can improve their health or wellbeing.

An example of one of the things that has been organised was the Kickstart CQ Kids Try-athlon on the weekend of 10 October. I went down to that and it was great to see how many kids, down to the age of four, were there with their families just having a go, swimming, cycling and running in the triathlon. That was followed up with us oldies having a fun run later in the afternoon—the Rockhampton Road Runners 25th Anniversary Run—which was sponsored by Kickstart CQ. There was also the Pink Ribbon Breakfast a couple of weeks ago; the Netta Program for children aged five to 10, introducing them to netball, the Get Wet Weekend, with coaching by qualified Surfing Queensland coaches; Exposing Diabetes, which was set up to enable people to learn from experts and get practical and motivational tips about managing diabetes; and also Lighten Up to a Healthy Lifestyle, which is a group of adults who want to improve their health through changing their lifestyle. These events underline the fact that this is a whole-of-community challenge, but it is one that the federal government is seeking to lead in with our support and with funding.

I mention just one more: the Shape Up Shed in Collinsville. Collinsville is a small rural mining community in the very north of Capricornia. The Shape Up Shed was opened earlier this year with the help of federal government funding and it has provided a great facility in that community to bring people together to get some qualified exercise activities under way. When I was in Collinsville last week I was told that there are 60 members and that they are going to come to me asking for more money for a bigger facility within a short space of time, so people in Collinsville have certainly got the message. The federal government has been very happy to facilitate the take-up of healthy, active lifestyles in Collinsville and will continue to help them out in the future.

There is no doubt that we have a big job ahead of us to make preventative health care the centre of our health system. Australia is now getting the leadership and the funding it needs to tackle the complex and growing challenge of preventable chronic diseases caused by smoking, diet, alcohol, obesity and poor lifestyle choices. I commend this bill to the House as one more step in tackling that challenge.

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