Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Dixon is forgetting that a promise made in an election campaign by the Liberal Party without funding and not during his time of government does not count as a commitment that they ever delivered. It is our government delivering funding to SIDS and Kids, PANDA and Bonnie Babes and he is quite determined to misrepresent this new announcement and new service, something that they should be ashamed that they never provided.

What we want to do is offer help to new mums during what can be a very exciting time but can also sometimes be difficult and confusing. We want to provide help and information and choice to women, not give them a lecture. This is in stark contrast to the complete failure of the Leader of the Opposition’s own baby and that was the National Pregnancy Support Helpline. Mr Abbott’s pregnancy helpline was one of the few decisions that he actually made to expand health services as a health minister. The only problem was he allowed his personal beliefs to interfere and get in the way of providing completely accessible and non-judgmental public services. Since $13.3 million was put into the helpline from May 2007, it has received just 5,500 calls. That is five calls a day over three years at a cost of more than $2,000 per call. No wonder women did not call this hotline of the Leader of the Opposition, it could not give women information about depression, breastfeeding and family planning. It could only counsel options of what was available but not provide any information beyond that, forcing callers sometimes to go to Google or the Yellow Pages if they wanted to make contact with any other service provider or information service.

The reason for those problems is that Mr Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, does not live in the real world or understand the information that many women and girls might want and need. Unfortunately, he has a record of judging women through his own extreme views. He jokes about women and their ironing. He is on the record as saying that he is dead against paid maternity leave. And he used his position as the health minister to make it hard for women to get information and support, failing to understand the trauma, grief and outright dilemmas that many women experience.

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