Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak today on a condolence motion for Dr Douglas Nixon Everingham, who was born on 25 June 1923 and died on 24 August 2017. I didn't know Dr Everingham personally, but he had a significant influence on my career. The Whitlam government was inextricably enmeshed with my career as a doctor and with my political views. A medical student, I witnessed the difficulties people without medical insurance had accessing to medical care. I also saw in places like Callan Park and Broughton Hall in Sydney the way people with severe mental illness and disability were chronically institutionalised. I heard on many occasions in the 1970s the call for a universal healthcare insurance system. Dr Everingham was at the forefront of a medical and social revolution that shaped my career and shaped my life.

The Labor Party had long had the view that some form of universal scheme to cover medical costs was necessary. A plan which was put forward by two health bureaucrats, Scotton and Deeble, was adopted by Gough Whitlam and Bill Hayden and put forward as Labor policy. At that time, the parliamentary Labor Party had more medical practitioners than it had ever had: Dick Klugman, Harry Jenkins Sr, Moss Cass and Doug Everingham. They were all doctors who had worked with a variety of people, many of them disadvantaged. Doug Everingham had worked in the mental health system for some years.

With the advent of the Whitlam government, the Medibank legislation was introduced and rejected by conservative forces in the Senate. I well remember visits to the Sydney Medical School by Bruce Shepherd, as head of the AMA, to encourage us medical students to donate to the fighting fund against the evil of Medibank. The Medibank bills had to be taken eventually to a double dissolution. I remember, as a delegate for the Australian Medical Students' Association in Adelaide, hearing Doug Everingham as the Whitlam health minister talking about the benefits of a universal healthcare system. It seemed to me to be the most rational response to what was then a crisis in medical costs. Doug Everingham was the health minister and helped Bill Hayden, the social security minister, introduce the new universal health insurance system called Medibank after the double dissolution election. Medibank commenced on 1 July 1975. Within nine months, health insurance cards were issued to over 90 per cent of Australians, completely revolutionising access to medical care. It's my personal view that, because there were a number of medical practitioners in the government who understood the importance of health care for all Australians, there was the urgency required to introduce the Medibank legislation and push it through, to make sure that Australians got the medical care they deserved. Foremost of these was Doug Everingham. He's now sometimes remembered for his eccentricities, such as his liking for Esperanto, the phonetic language that is consigned to history now, but he was really a seminal figure in health care in Australia.

Amongst the many things that Doug Everingham pioneered was the development of comprehensive community healthcare centres. The community healthcare centres now throughout Australia are a tribute to Doug Everingham. He pioneered the move to get people with psychiatric illness and disabilities out of institutional care and into the community. He presaged the Richmond report in New South Wales, which led to community involvement and community participation for many people with mental illness and disabilities. He introduced the school dental scheme and wanted to extend the scheme to cover all Australians but faced an uphill battle with a strong campaign against this from the Australian Dental Association. Doug Everingham also led the anti-smoking fight and introduced the gradual implementation of the ban on tobacco advertising on TV and radio. He wanted to introduce anti-smoking ads but was stopped from doing this by the government.

Doug Everingham was a doctor ahead of his time. He leaves a lasting legacy that all those in medicine reap the rewards of. He leaves a legacy not just in parliament but in the wider Australian community, and we should be very grateful for this. I'm certainly grateful for his influence and I extend my condolences to his family. He was a great Australian and, by any account, he was a great Australian physician and deserves our commendation.

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