Address To The Emily’s List (ACT) Dinner Julia Gillard - Shadow Minister for Health, Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives

Speech

Transcript - Canberra - 3 June 2004

May I start by acknowledging the traditional owners of this land the Ngunnawal people and paying my respects to their elders.

And may I say, it is fantastic in a parliamentary week to gather with women and talk about the real issues.

Some weeks in Parliament you do really feel like you have entered a parallel universe where the rules of normal human behaviour have been thrown out the window.

Let me give you a startling example.  As I am sure you are all aware, Labor announced, as part of Mark Latham’s reply to the Howard Government Budget, that a Latham Labor Government will fund all of the recommended vaccines for Australian newborns including the vaccine against the deadly but preventable pneumococcal disease.

This announcement was necessary because the Howard Government, having created the expectation it would fund the pneumococcal vaccine through the words of Health Minister Tony Abbott, shattered those hopes by failing to announce the funding in the May Budget.  The Budget that was supposed to be family friendly neglected the most basic need of Australian families, the need to protect children from dying or becoming disabled from a preventable disease.

This occurred despite the fact that as long ago as September 2002, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, the experts whose job it is to advise government, told the Howard Government it needed to fund the pneumococcal, chicken pox and new polio vaccines for all Australian children.

This advice was confirmed by the National Health & Medical Research Council in September 2003. 

The inaction of the Howard Government meant that for the first time the list of recommended vaccines and the list funded by government were two different things and families without money couldn’t get their children vaccinated.

Now you would think that if you had callously disregarded the recommendations of experts and failed to act to vaccinate Australian children against a preventable disease then the ordinary human reaction would be shame.

But not this Government, which is as much a stranger to shame as it is to telling the truth.

The Howard Government reaction has been to send out its right-wing mates in the media – Piers Akerman and Christopher Pearson – the addled and the awful – to criticise Labor for doing the right thing and announcing its commitment to these vaccines.

Then this week, Minister Abbott has criticised in Parliament Labor’s claims that around 50 Australian children die each year from the pneumococcal disease.

Now, Labor’s claim is a credible one, supported by experts.

But for a moment let’s proceed on the basis of a heroic and unlikely assumption – let’s assume Tony Abbott has for once got it right and that 10 children died in 2003 and 9 children died in 2002.

Minister Abbott’s own figures mean that it is likely 17 children have died since the Howard Government was first told by experts to fund this vaccine and 7 children have died since the second group of experts gave the same advice.

And Tony Abbott is so callous, so focussed on gaining a perceived political advantage against Labor, that he has proudly thrown these figures around Parliament this week as if these numbers represented scores in a game rather than a litany of human tragedy.

How do you become so cold, so aloof from the concerns of real people that you can think the deaths of 17 children or even 7 children is something you play politics with?

Surely anyone is capable of understanding that the death of one child from a disease that can be stopped by a simple vaccine is one death too many?

And in today’s newspapers there is a report that finally, having been shamed into it by Labor, the Howard Government is thinking of funding the pneumococcal vaccine and perhaps even funding a catch up program for toddlers.

I wonder what Minister Abbott will say on the day he makes that announcement to the families of the children who have died or become profoundly disabled while the Howard Government failed to act.  For them, there is no catch up.

Medicare

At the same time the Howard Government has neglected to properly vaccinate Australian children, it has driven Medicare in to crisis.

Let me tell you the real life story of one of my constituents, Lisa Beattie, who lives in Werribee in my electorate.

Lisa is a sole parent with three children, aged 6 years, 4 years and 18 months.  She is on a sole parent pensioner through Centrelink.

Lisa has Perthe’s disease, dislocation and osteoporosis of the hips which requires medical monitoring and causes problems when Lisa gets sick with things like flu.  Lisa’s youngest daughter was also born with two dislocated hips and has been required to wear a brace until recently. 

Lisa has been attending the same doctor for over ten years and he has become familiar with her and her daughter’s conditions.  It had been a bulk billing clinic and Lisa did not realise it had ceased bulk billing everyone.

On Monday of this week, Lisa made an appointment for two of her three children with her doctor.  One child had bleeding sores on her back and stomach.  Another had a rash.

Lisa arrived for the 12.40 pm appointment at 12.20pm and was advised by the person at reception she would need to wait her turn.  Approximately 20 minutes later, she overheard another patient talking to the receptionist about a $35 upfront fee.  This prompted Lisa to enquire about her own situation.  She was initially informed by one receptionist that because she was on a pension, she would be fine.  At this point another receptionist stepped in and overruled by stating “You will still need to pay the $35 upfront fee per child”.  In other words, Lisa was being asked for $70 upfront.

Lisa explained that she didn’t have the money to pay upfront and that she wouldn’t have the money until Thursday when she received her pension and was told, “Well, sorry, there is nothing we can do”.  Lisa then asked “So my daughters can’t see the doctor?” and the reply was “No, you’ll have to go to a bulk billing doctor”. 

At this moment the doctor came out from his room to the reception area and called her name.  Lisa said to him, “I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to see you!”  The doctor smiled at her, put down her file and called the next patient. 

Lisa was aware at this point that some ten other patients in the waiting room were all staring at her.  She says that she felt embarrassed, horrified and demoralised.  Her own self worth had plummeted.  She felt like a terrible mother because she couldn’t afford to have her daughters seen to by a doctor.  She collected her belongings and proceeded to the door when the patient she had overhead earlier approached her and said “I’m not being rude, but I’d like to know why you’re not seeing the doctor?”  She replied, “Because I don’t have $70 today”.

The patient then offered to pay for Lisa’s daughters to see the doctor.  This gesture of kindness nearly bought Lisa to tears and Lisa gratefully declined his offer, stating that it wasn’t necessary, that she couldn’t believe that they wanted her to now pay $35 per child to a doctor that she has been seeing for 10 years.  The gentleman stated, “I know, it’s disgusting.  Go and see your local MP.”

Lisa ultimately found a doctor.  But surely in a prosperous nation like Australia, mothers like Lisa shouldn’t be going through this experience.

And yet, Lisa and the thousands of other Australians who have been turned away or struggled to pay a doctor’s bill or queued at a hospital emergency department in desperation because there was no other way to get care will sit in their homes tonight and see Howard Government advertisements saying they are Strengthening Medicare. 

What a sick joke.  The Howard Government is destroying Medicare, having presided over a 12 per cent plunge in bulk billing and a staggering 75 per cent increase in the costs of seeing a doctor.

The Howard Government’s only answer is to rob taxpayers of $15.7 million to pay for false advertising about Medicare.

But Australians won’t be fooled.  Every Australian knows watching an advertisement never healed anyone and that that money should have been used to provide more than 600,000 bulk billed consultations for Lisa and all those like her.

Public Health Outcome Funding Agreements (PHOFAs)

And the bad news for women doesn’t end with the crisis in bulk billing.

Women’s health programs are also being directly attacked.  The Howard Government is in the process of trying to force the State and Territory Governments into taking a sub-standard deal on important health programs for women.  At the moment the Public Health Outcome Funding Agreements are being hastily prepared. 

These Agreements are the source of funds for vital programs like:

·       The National Drug Strategy;

1. The National HIV/AIDS Strategy;
2. The National Immunisation Program;
3. BreastScreen Australia;
4. The National Cervical Screening Program;
5. The National Women's Health Program;
6. The National Education Program on Female Genital Mutilation; and
7. The Alternative Birthing Program.
   

The current agreement expires in June, but the negotiation process for the new agreements only started last month.  Now State and Territory Governments are understandably worried that there is insufficient time to assess the deal on offer.

Despite the vital importance of these programs to the nation’s public health and women’s health in particular, it looks as if we are headed for a re-enactment of the Australia Health Care Agreements - last minute bullying and a ‘sign this or else’ attitude. 

The arrangements presented to the State and Territory Governments have some serious problems such as:

• No new funding over indexation (at WCI-1).  How do you run screening programs for a growing and ageing population when there is no new money to fund it?
• Without explanation immunisation is being pulled out of this agreement and will be put in a separate agreement.  Given the gross failures of the Howard Government on immunisation, we all have a right to be suspicious of the motives behind this move.
• Family planning for the first time will be included in all these agreements.  It is strongly rumoured that there will be less funds for family planning although the need for family planning hasn’t reduced.  Perhaps Minister Abbott would like to explain why to Australian women.

The Need for a New Approach to Health

Lisa’s story and the lack of commitment to important women’s health programs like breast and cervical screening, family planning and choice in childbirth, prove that the task of getting rid of the Howard Government and getting a new approach to health is urgent.

A Latham Labor Government will bring a new approach to health and will work with the States and Territories to reform our health system so that it is ready for the challenges of the 21 ^st century.

Australians are rightly sick of the gaps and holes in our health system and the cost shifting and buck passing between Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments.

A Latham Labor Government will have a historic opportunity with Labor Governments in all State and Territories to renew and rebuild our health system.

But to achieve that historic reform we not only need a Latham Labor Government, we need to ensure the re-election of Labor Governments around the country including in the ACT.

Emily’s List – Supporting Candidates

So now for the hard sell.

We can’t build a new health system, a system responsive to the needs of women without good women in power.

Emily’s List is giving you the opportunity to help.

Here tonight we have Karen McDonald, the Member for Brindabella and candidates Susan McCarthy, Kim Sattler, Adina Cirson and Rebecca Logue.

These women deserve and need your support.  Emily’s List stands for Early Money is Like Yeast – it makes the dough rise!  For the ACT elections we might be missing the early part, but your money is desperately needed.  Modern political campaigning costs money and if we want to see fantastic women in the ACT Assembly then we need your help.

As soon as you can you need to pick a candidate, or pick all the candidates and send your money through the Emily’s List donation system, which I am sure Karen Mow, from Emily’s List, will be only too happy to explain to you.

You’ll feel fantastic, the candidates will be grateful and Emily’s List will have played an important role in delivering more women into Parliament.

Conclusion

And as well as asking for your support in the ACT, we will need your support federally.  As a woman who had the misfortune to study statistics at university, I could bore you witless explaining the reasons that individual poll numbers bounce up and down.

But whatever the poll numbers show, the truth is Labor goes into the Federal campaign very much the underdog.  Incumbency is an enormous advantage particularly when you are prepared to treat taxpayers’ money as if it is your own and use it to fund mass advertising of your lies.

Our task is the truth telling, the truth telling that Medicare won’t last three years of Prime Minister John Howard followed by Prime Minister Peter Costello.