Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commence my contribution to this debate on the Australian National Preventive Health Agency Bill 2010 by also imploring that we have a bipartisan approach to this legislation and by encouraging the opposition to support the establishment of the Australian National Preventive Health Agency. I know that this bill or a very similar bill—there have been some amendments to the legislation—was introduced into the parliament in 2009. I spoke in the debate at that time and I listened to the contribution of the member for Dickson. It disappointed me that he could not give wholehearted support to the establishment of this agency because this government—the previous Rudd government and now the Gillard government—has had a very strong commitment to fighting preventable diseases. This is best done through having a very strong preventative health strategy and through a coordinated National Preventive Health Agency.

This bill currently has a commencement date of 2010. The agency will commence automatically six months after the bill receives royal assent if it is not proclaimed before then. This is very important because it means we will not be back here debating this legislation again if there is some hiccup in the other place. It is very important that we get the Australian National Preventive Health Agency operating, because we have so many lifestyle diseases in this country. We have so many diseases that can be addressed through preventative health strategies. This agency needs to be operational. The legislation we have before us today looks at the number of meetings of the advisory council in 2011, the timing around the development and approval of the strategy, and timing and presentation of annual reports to the parliament. This legislation creates a framework for the agency.

I would like to touch a little, in the time I have before the parliament, on the importance of fighting preventable diseases. One of the earmarks of the Labor government has been its approach to preventable diseases and how we can combat them—preventable diseases such as obesity, drug and alcohol abuse and smoking. They will be key priorities of the new National Preventative Health Agency. This government has joined forces with peak health groups to call on the parliament to support this legislation. The original bill received wide consultation and was broadly welcomed by stakeholders. Many urged that it be quickly introduced into parliament. I last spoke on this 12 months ago and we still have not got an operational agency. The Commonwealth government will take the major funding responsibility, as we all know, and I spoke about this in my contribution to a debate earlier this week on public hospitals and primary care. Along with that, we need to have in place a structure, an agency, to deal with preventable diseases and take a lot of the pressure off our hospitals. If you can deal with a problem before it becomes a major illness, then we will be a lot better off.

I would like to address a couple of the preventable diseases that this agency will oversee and some of the lifestyle issues that are associated with it. In this parliament I have introduced five private members’ motions. The first one I introduced looked at stroke and discussed Stroke Awareness Week. It looked at the number of people that suffer from stroke and strategies to deal with stroke. One of the key factors was to address issues such as obesity as well as tobacco and alcohol abuse. That just demonstrates how important this agency will be.

I had a private member’s motion in the House this week on Pink Ribbon Day looking at breast cancer. Once again, lifestyle issues impact on the number of people who develop this type of cancer, along with many other cancers. I also have a motion on the Notice Paper looking at cardiovascular disease. That motion talks about what cardiovascular disease is, talks about the fact that it kills one Australian every 11 minutes, looks at the effect that cardiovascular disease has on Australians and looks at how it prevents 1.4 million people in Australia from living a full life because of the disability caused by that disease. The motion goes on to state what the risk factors are for cardiovascular disease—tobacco smoking, insufficient exercise, poor nutrition, alcohol consumption, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, being overweight and having diabetes. These are all lifestyle issues. Cardiovascular disease can be addressed if these issues are addressed.

In my previous contribution to this debate, I highlighted issues such as binge drinking. I referred to the fact that the AMA sees this as one of the biggest problems in our society. Not only does it affect a person’s health; it leads to road accidents, domestic violence, vandalism and chaos within our community. Figures that I have looked at show that there is a very high level of alcohol use and abuse in Australia. Ninety per cent of people have tried alcohol and 83 per cent have consumed an alcoholic drink in the past 12 months. Only about 10 per cent of people have never tried alcohol. The AMA has found that about eight per cent of Australians drink daily and about 41 per cent of Australians drink weekly. There is an enormous cost associated with alcohol abuse, and alcohol abuse is responsible for large numbers of hospital beds being occupied in our country. This is an important issue to address, and what better way of addressing it than through the Australian National Preventive Health Agency?

I also have a motion on the Notice Paper about obesity. In the last parliament, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health and Ageing held an inquiry into obesity. The report from that inquiry was called Weighing it up. We looked at a number of issues surrounding obesity, such as diet, exercise and planning at a local government level. In looking at this, we found that Australia is one of the countries in the developed nations with the greatest number of people who are overweight. That is quite frightening. It is associated with diseases such as diabetes, which the member for Pearce spent some time talking about; cardiovascular disease, which I touched on earlier in my contribution to this debate; stroke; and breast cancer—it is also a factor there. It is an issue that we as a nation need to address.

One in two adults and one in four children in Australia are overweight—frightening statistics. We face a situation in which children growing up in Australia look like they will die at a younger age than the generation that we are part of. That has never happened before. It will be a very sad state of affairs if it is allowed to happen. Establishing this agency, which will allow the Commonwealth to control and coordinate a cross-government approach to obesity, is one of the most important things that we in this parliament can do in this regard. Everybody involved in the sector needs to be brought together so that they can work to address the issue of obesity.

The agency will allow for a strong social marketing program, with the government providing education, including education on nutrition, exercise and lifestyle issues. A healthy lifestyle means eating well, exercising well, using alcohol sensibly and cutting out smoking. If we do those things, we will reduce the number of people who require beds in our hospitals and reduce the cost to government from these lifestyle diseases that are largely preventable.

One lifestyle choice that people make is to smoke. Smoking is responsible for a large number of people requiring hospital beds. The government has a proposal to bring in plain cigarette packaging. There is no better place to coordinate that through than this proposed new agency. The government has led the world in reforms to stop smoking, such as by increasing the tobacco excise this year by 25 per cent, by investing another $5 million in quit services, by investing $85 million in anti-tobacco campaigns and by being the first country in the world to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products. Those are very important steps and strategies to address the issue of those lifestyle diseases that have developed in our country.

I implore those on the other side of the House to support this legislation. We need a National Preventive Health Agency in this country to coordinate our approach to fighting all the lifestyle diseases that I mention and to address the causes of those diseases, such as smoking, alcohol abuse and obesity. This is really important legislation that needs to pass this parliament as soon as possible.

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