Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the answer given by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government in relation to the Prime Minister’s decision to provide $2½ million for the preservation of the dead union tree at Barcaldine and, on the other hand, the decision by the Prime Minister not to provide $800,000 to the Bonnie Babes Foundation, which is based in Melbourne and provides counselling and support to 12,000 Australian women who have suffered miscarriages and stillborn babies. I ask the Prime Minister: is he aware that one in four pregnant Australian women will lose her baby to miscarriage? Is he aware that one in 200 will suffer a stillbirth? And, further to his answer when I asked him about this earlier, is he aware that Lifeline refers callers who have suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth to this service? Will he now agree to meet these women and provide them with the $800,000 that they desperately need to support Australian women in distress?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When it comes to the needs of women in these terrible circumstances and their families, suffering miscarriage, suffering from still births, of course every level of humane service should be provided. These are very difficult and awful times for families to go through. There are a range of services out there in the community that provide services to women and to families, one of which is Bonnie Babes—I will come back to that in a minute—another of which is Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support Australia, SANDS. Then there is SIDS and Kids and the Stillbirth Foundation. When it comes to the application which was made to the previous government for funding by the organisation Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support Australia, SANDS, no support was forthcoming from the previous government. That is just a fact.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The question has been asked.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Secondly, on the question of the Bonnie Babes Foundation, let the record again speak for itself: this organisation, which I am absolutely confident does great work, was not funded by the previous government in previous budgets. The previous government made a pre-election commitment on it but there was no flow of funding to the organisation by the previous government during its period in office. Therefore, the challenge that we are presented with is: how do we effectively ensure that women who need these critical services are provided with proper counselling and support across the range of agencies that exist? The responsible course of action, both in these areas and also when it comes to postnatal depression, is to ensure that we have a proper examination right across the sector. The minister has already announced a way to do that. And, in the context of that examination, the minister will be actively consulting with Bonnie Babes and with the other organisations—SANDS, SIDS and Kids and the Stillbirth Foundation—to make sure that we get the best set of services possible for women who are dealing with these extraordinary challenges.

We are talking about an amount of money that has been put forward by Bonnie Babes, and there are requests by others as well. I find it remarkable that those opposite, when it comes to the overall balance in the allocation of government funding, could have happily spent $120-plus million on taxpayer funded advertising on Work Choices. When it comes to that $121 million my strong suggestion to those opposite is that it would have been much better spent right across public health, right across dental health. Instead of abolishing the Commonwealth Dental Health Scheme, why did you not dedicate those funds to the proper delivery of dental services, to the whole raft of perinatal and postnatal services, to the health sector in general? Instead, the former government invested $121 million in an area of spending which could only be described as political propaganda.

In addressing these areas of need, community organisations, non-government organisations and organisations that deliver important services, such as Bonnie Babes, are to be commended. The minister will be consulting with these organisations during the course of her review. We will make sure that the proper delivery of funding to support these critical services for women experiencing these distressing circumstances is met into the future.