David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think this matter of public importance is quite astonishing. The amazing hypocrisy and the amazing chutzpah are too hard to swallow. How can the other side be criticising a hardworking minister when they have such a prodigious record of waste and incompetence when they were in charge of the health portfolio?

When we talk about preventative health we are expecting things that will lead to some change in behaviour but, as anyone knows, looking at a website is not going to change a shopper's behaviour. Can you imagine a busy mum walking down the aisles with her children saying, 'Can we get this?' and the mum saying: 'Stop, kids. I will just look up the website and see whether we will get it'? No. It is broad education about the virtues of good, healthy food. It is going to the greengrocer instead of buying packaged products. It is knowing that something that runs, eats grass, hops, flies or swims—natural animal protein—is good for you. Anything you pull out of the ground or pick off a tree is probably going to be healthy. Processed foods are not as nutritious as natural foods. It is fairly basic. A website is not going to do anything because the only people who will go to the website will be people who are already motivated and thinking like that. There is a profusion of websites.

The other side is the team who brought us the $650 million superclinics fiasco. I have one in my electorate. There was a contract for over $7 million. They knocked down half of a nursing home and it is still a construction site three years later. I have been working in hospitals for over 30 years. In the last few years I saw the fiasco of the e-health records. They managed to spend $1 billion on that, but only 31,000 people have actually had any of their records uploaded to the site. I might add that 1.3 million people have asked to go on it but they have managed to get just over 31,000 people onto it.

We also have 12 new health bureaucracies. I am sure bureaucrats will not be able to deliver preventative health outcomes except by a very long bow, particularly since none of these health bureaucracies existed before. What about the chronic disease dental program? That was binned. Bad dental health can lead to so many other complications with cardiovascular health and general nutrition. How can you chew healthy food if you do not have teeth? So many common-sense things were thrown out the window, yet they have the temerity to criticise a hardworking health ministry.

What about medical research? In 2011 the Labor Party had the hide to take away $400 million from the NHMRC. You only have to look at the record of the coalition government. The National Bowel Cancer Screening Program, a coalition initiative, is being rolled out to people up to 74 years of age on a biennial basis. Talk about prevention and early intervention—that will save lives.

What about the diabesity epidemic and diabetes in particular? The national diabetes plan coordinates all levels of government and health delivery into a single plan. Getting immunisation rates up from a very low level to over 90 per cent is prevention. Immunisation is one of the greatest public health initiatives but it only works if there are enough people so you get herd immunity. If your percentage drops, the system is very fruitless. Getting the immunisation rate in young children above 90 per cent delivered huge outcomes, and that was a coalition initiative.

The current commitment to medical research is $859 million at its peak. That is a great increase. The coalition is committed to increasing GP training, particularly in rural and remote areas, areas that our Assistant Minister for Health has visited on many occasions. She has been doing a great job. This is a simple distraction from their own problems. (Time expired)

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