James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. What is the minister doing to close the gap in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians?

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

I thank the member for Dawson for his question. I know he takes a great interest, as most members over this side of the House do, in what we are doing to close the life expectancy gap for Indigenous Australians. The Prime Minister has already taken the House through some of the details of the initiatives that have been announced today, but I think that it is important to go through how these initiatives are meshing with the other initiatives of the Rudd Labor government to make absolutely clear that our vision for Indigenous Australians in a modern Australia is that they have equality of health status, educational status and life expectancy. We are going to do everything we can, whether it is through the health portfolio, the education portfolio, the community services portfolio or elsewhere, to make sure that we turn the ambitious statement of intent that was signed today by the government, by the opposition and by Indigenous leaders into a reality.

We know that the announcements today are targeting and complementing announcements that we made during the election and have already started rolling out. We of course have a $260 million package on the table for early childhood education and health. We know that this is going to make a huge difference to Indigenous babies who are being born today and that that will have a long-term impact on the life expectancy gap.

But the announcements made today by the Prime Minister, particularly our investment in cutting smoking rates, are targeted towards adult Indigenous people. We know that we need to cut the smoking rates of everybody who is smoking today. We need to try to bring the smoking rates in Indigenous communities down to those rates that we experience across the rest of the country. We know it is going to need a targeted strategy. The strategies that have been successful but that still need to be repeated in the broader community have largely gone over the heads of the Indigenous community. They have not been targeted in a way that the Indigenous community have been receptive to. This financing will make it possible for us to make sure that the message about smoking and the damage it can do to your long-term health actually is heard by the Indigenous community.

We really look forward to working with Indigenous health specialists. Those who are involved in social marketing targeted towards particular groups will be able to devise a very sharp message which we hope will make a difference for Indigenous communities. I might also highlight something that our partners in the Indigenous health sector are very supportive of but which does put an obligation on them as well. Part of this initiative is to ensure that health workers in Aboriginal health services are also able to quit smoking and will lead by example. This is a particularly difficult issue for many health workers. As anyone in the House who has been a smoker would know, quitting is difficult for everyone. But we need to be able to turn around and make a big impact in Indigenous communities, and we will need those health workers to lead by example. We are setting aside a specific part of our funding to ensure that we assist them in that process of quitting and setting that example to the community.

I want to also make clear that we are making both short-term and long-term investments. The long-term investment in an Indigenous workforce is going to be a really important part of our solution for the future. If, across all of our electorates, Indigenous health services cannot find Indigenous people to work as nurses and doctors, we know that we will continue to have these complex problems. So, as for investing in the workforce, we know it will take a long time but it must be done if in 10, 20 and 30 years time we are going to meet these targets and actually change the status and life expectancy of Indigenous Australians across the country. Our vision as a government is to close that gap. That is what we want to become a reality, and some of the down payments that have been announced today are very important steps to turning that statement of intent into a reality.