Mike Freelander
Macarthur · Australian Labor Party · Australia
“She started the longest and biggest prospective study of allergy and anaphylaxis in the developed world, called HealthNuts, which is still ongoing. She had a PhD, and her PhD thesis was on liver cell transplantation using a mouse model of Wilson's disease, a very rare but well-known cause of liver failure.”
“I knew Katie Allen in a professional capacity prior to her entering this place as the second paediatrician to be elected to the House of Representatives. I dealt with her professionally in her role as the head of the Centre for Food and Allergy Research in the Murdoch Children's Research Institute.”
“She was a really deep thinker, a really decent person and someone—like many paediatricians—who understood the implications of the social determinants of health and was willing to work hard to make sure that Australia led the way in paediatric health care. She was brave and she was steadfast. She was someone who stood up for her views.”
“Recently, we celebrated Australian Made Week in Macarthur, and to mark that occasion I visited the fantastic team at Sebel, a manufacturing business which produces chairs, stools, tables, desks and storage units in Minto in my electorate of Macarthur.”
“It's great to see the Sebel tradition of high-quality products being maintained now in my electorate of Macarthur. Harry and Queenie are long gone, but their legacy continues with a business that is employing lots of people and providing innovative products and 21st century manufacturing, including recycling.”
“It was founded by my friend Ross Doonan in 2004 and has gone on to national and international acclaim, producing products with coating. You often see them on railway stations—the signs and chairs that have wood coatings on aluminium products. I myself am doing a home renovation that will be using DECO products.”
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“I've been really overwhelmed by the support I've had from all my committee members. I thank them so much, and I hope that they will get the opportunity to talk about their experiences as well. It has really been an informative process. The chair of the Thriving Kids committee that Mark Butler put together, Frank Oberklaid, has been a doyen of paediatric developmental medicine for the last half a century in Australia and overseas as well, and his advice and his support has also been vital. I'd like to thank the secretariat for the work that they've done. It was a high-time-pressure inquiry. We did a lot of interviews and a lot of public meetings, and I really am very grateful for the expertise of the secretariat. But, most of all, I'd like to thank my committee members.”
“And we need to make sure that organisations that provide those social supports for families and for kids with disabilities are appropriately funded and are appropriately available in an equitable manner around the country. In particular, rural and regional areas have really struggled to get the supports they need for kids and adults with developmental disabilities, hence the Thriving Kids initiative announced by Mark Butler, the Minister for Health and Ageing. It was a really eye-opening inquiry that we did, and I would like to thank so much all my committee members—in particular, the member for Kooyong, the deputy chair, who gave us her time and her expertise as a paediatric neurologist and was incredibly supportive. But so was everyone else on the committee.”
“We've had an explosion of support organisations, many of whom are unregistered, many of whom were providing services of poor quality. I've been approached by a number of different organisations, including those in the legal profession, who are very concerned about NDIS supports being provided for people with, for example, intellectual disability ending up in the legal system inappropriately. Data collection has been very poor, so we often don't know what supports are being provided to whom and where. Transparency and accountability have not occurred, and it is really way over time for the scheme to be overhauled. We also need to make sure that children who have developmental concerns can get access to early intervention and that early intervention happens early, it's not diagnosis dependent and the families can feel supported themselves.”
“As a paediatrician, I've seen firsthand how it has provided certainty for those families and it must continue. However, the scheme faces significant challenges. In a way, it's become all things to all people. It has become the only boat in the ocean or the only port in a storm. While the principles of independence, choice, dignity and equity inclusion remain vital, there have been significant structural flaws—the necessity of a diagnosis. The up diagnosis was happening so that people with relatively mild disabilities could become eligible for the NDIS. I've seen that myself in the process where kids with learning difficulties are being diagnosed with other things so that they could qualify for the scheme. Supports have not been evidence based.”
“As a paediatrician, I had discussed prior to Julia Gillard's ascension to the prime ministership the importance of support for families of children who have severe disabilities, and this was really the culmination of what has been a transformative social project. As a paediatrician, I saw the NDIS really change the lives of many of the families that I had looked after for a long period of time. It meant that they had certainty of support for their children when they were no longer able to care for them or had passed away, and that was the one thing that many of those families were worried about. It really was transformative. The NDIS now supports over 750,000 people, with an average plan budget of around $82,000. The NDIS, as I've said, has been absolutely life changing and something that I will support forever.”
“On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, I present the committee's report incorporating some dissenting comments entitled No Child Left Behind : Report into Thriving Kids Initiative together with the minutes of proceedings. Report made a parliamentary paper in accordance with standing order 39(e). by leave—On behalf of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Disability, the committee's report on the inquiry into the Thriving Kids Initiative, I think, was a very important one. The National Disability Insurance Scheme, the NDIS, was introduced in 2013 by then prime minister Julia Gillard. It has transformed the lives of Australians living with disability and remains one of the most significant social reforms in our nation's history.”
“My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing and Minister for Disability and the NDIS. How is the Albanese Labor government securing the future of the NDIS and delivering more funding and support to help Australian kids and their families to thrive?”
“This is what Hanukkah is about: light in the darkness. I thank all those who have delivered messages of hope and positivity. We must look forward, not backwards, but we must make sure that this cannot happen again. Thank you.”
“I'm very proud to be part of a government that has dealt with this tragedy and is looking to further measures to make sure we don't have further episodes of antisemitism to this violent extent in Australia. But it's important that we reach into the depths of our society and look into why this has happened. We need to improve our civics education and we need to make sure that all communities are included in our society, and that none are excluded. I have been gratified, actually, by the contact I've had with people of all religions, from our local Buddhists to our local mosques, and people of all religions working in the health system with me. I look forward to a better future. We have seen at Bondi that great tragedy can be followed by great heroism. As a society, great disasters can be followed by great light and great improvement.”
“It hasn't been built on nothing; antisemitism has existed in Australia since Jewish people have been here. I remember, as a younger person, the fire-bombing of the Bankstown Synagogue when I was a kid. Antisemitism has existed for a long time. It is important that we find out why this has ramped up, and it is important that we root it out. As I said, this is not just antisemitism; this is anti civilisation. There is not a person in this place, I know, who would not support measures to make sure we root out antisemitism in our community, because it's not just about the Jewish population: it's about all civilised people. We have to make change—we cannot continue on this road. I congratulate the Prime Minister and the cabinet for their behaviour in the way they have dealt with this.”
“My grandfather, Randolph Griffiths, was one of the Bondi lifesavers involved on the Black Sunday rescue on 6 February 1938—the greatest surf rescue that has ever happened in Australia. Hundreds of people were rescued but, unfortunately, five people died. He later went on to become one of the founders of the Emanuel Synagogue in Woollahra. The Jewish community has contributed to this country over many generations. It is diverse. The Chabad community is a religious community, a part of the Jewish community that has contributed significantly in the relatively short time that it has existed in Sydney. The Jewish community contributes, and there is a huge difficulty with understanding what has happened with antisemitism in the last few years. Why has this happened?”
“The people that were murdered at Bondi were murdered by men who were not just antisemitic but anti civilisation. These people need to be rooted out, no matter where they come from. It isn't just Muslim extremism; we have extreme right-wing Neo-Nazis who want to do the same, and they must be rooted out. That's part of our responsibility as a government, and I apologise deeply to the people who were killed and who were injured that, as a country, we couldn't protect you. It makes me deeply sad. The Jewish community in Sydney has clustered at Bondi for many generations. My dad went to school at Christian Brothers Waverley, just up the road. He lived in Birrell Street in Bondi. My mother and father met at a party on Bondi Beach—that was the first time they met.”
“To Boris Gurman, Sofia Gurman, Edith Brutman, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Boris Tetleroyd, Marika Pogany, Adam Smyth, Matilda, Dan Elkayam, Peter Meagher, Tibor Weitzen, Reuven Morrison, Alexander Kleytman, Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, Tania Tretiak—to the victims of Bondi: may your memories be a blessing. To your friends and relatives: I wish you a long life. What happened on 14 December at Bondi was a tragedy. It was a tragedy for those involved. It was a tragedy for the Jewish community in Australia. The Jewish community in Australia is diverse. It has been here since first European settlement. Many of my relatives came here as convicts. They built a life that was aimed at service, at improving the community and at making the world a better place, and they have done so for generations.”
“There are many lives that have been extended and many families who have prospered because of survival times for their loved ones with cancer. It is really a remarkable, remarkable time to be involved in medicine in Australia. Omico, led by Professor David Thomas, is leading us into a really bright future in medicine in Australia and I congratulate him and his team for the wonderful advances that really are opening a new world for cancer treatment in Australia. I'm very proud to have had some involvement in this program since its inception. I congratulate all the Omico team. I look forward to working with them in the future, and I look forward to our government continuing to help fund their remarkable treatments and the remarkable way they are changing lives.”
“It started in 2016 and is giving mainstream access for free to some of these amazing new technologies and, really, the future looks very good for many of these people. Ian Black, the CEO, says, 'The science is proven, the infrastructure is built and the partnerships are in place for national leadership and dramatic changes in cancer treatment. The PrOSPeCT program is giving people access across the country to these treatments, and Omico will be central to the development of even better treatments in the future.' Almost 30,000 people have had their cancer genomics tested and have been enrolled in the Omico program. It is giving equitable access; people do not pay for these tests and treatments. There are many lives that have been extended and many families who have prospered because of survival times for their loved ones with cancer.”
“Around the country, they are doing a lot of amazing work with people who previously had incurable cancers. After their almost 10 years of existence, we heard some life stories today at their launch and it is a real credit to Professor David Thomas. We have cutting-edge genomic technologies that are turning into tangible therapeutic advancements for Australians with challenging cancers, improving outcomes across the board. We are seeing tremendous strides in the development and understanding of cancer care. Through the work of people like Professor David Thomas, Jane Tiller and the team, Omico is really changing lives of many people. There is Professor David Thomas, who is the founder and chief scientific officer. Paul Jeans was the chair who will be handing over to Richard Vines. They are really doing amazing work.”
“He is the inaugural director of the Centre for Molecular Oncology—Omico. He has provided some amazing new treatments funded through the federal government, our government, and other partners that are changing the lives of many people with terminal and rare cancers. These treatments use biomarkers that are discovered using genetic and biochemical tests to assess the receptors on the cancer genes in cancer cells that make them grow out of control. We can use targeted treatments to improve outcomes, reduce cancer growth and, in some cases, get rid of the cancer altogether in previously fatal cancers. Omico works across many different spaces. In fact, they are conducting 118 clinical trials. They work in 80 cancer centres around the country, from the Peter MacCallum Institute in Victoria to the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.”
“I am very fond of rockstars like Bob Dylan and The Band, Jimmy Barnes and Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil and Peter Garrett, the Church et cetera. But there was another rockstar in the building today. Today I went to release of Omico's impact scorecard. Omico is a publicly funded organisation, a not-for-profit organisation, whose founder, Professor David Thomas, is a rockstar in the medical world. It is a great time to be part of health care in this country. There are some amazing advances happening with genetically targeted treatments for conditions that were previously fatal in the paediatric world that have turned the world upside down for many of those patients with conditions like cystic fibrosis, spinal muscular atrophy and others. In a world of cancer medicine, David Thomas is a rockstar. He works at the University of New South Wales.”
“For Dr Ahmed, our bulk-billing incentives have meant that he will be able to bulk-bill all his patients, they will be able to get GP care without long waiting times, and he will be able to ensure his patients can access the information, treatments and health care that they deserve and need to remain healthy. I respect the member for Bowman for his political views, the opposite of mine, but I can assure him that GPs on the front line have welcomed our bulk-billing incentives. They will make a major difference to health care. They are part of the solution that this government is working hard on to make sure Australians continue to get the 21st-century care that they deserve. Medicare is a great institution. This side of politics has always supported it and will continue to do so.”
“We're looking at getting more services to high-risk groups such as Indigenous populations, such as those with culturally and linguistically diverse populations, but it requires long-term thinking and long-term health planning, and that's what this government is doing through one of the best health ministers we've had in my time on this planet. Mark Butler is an excellent minister, and he is doing a remarkable job across a huge, broad portfolio. Recently I visited the bulk-billing urgent care clinic at Campbelltown. I spoke with Dr Jovad Ahmed, a very experienced doctor who has worked there for a long period of time and worked in the area for a long time.”
“It is important to know that interactions in the health system run into the many tens of millions every year, so of course there's always going to be some problem if a tiny percentage aren't satisfied with their care. But, overall, this government is working hard to make sure Australians get the best in 21st-century healthcare, which they deserve. There are problems—of course there are. I'd be the first to admit that. There is the cost of specialist care. Access to specialists can be very difficult. There are now waits to see paediatricians, my own profession, in rural areas measured in years, not weeks or months, which means a lot of the effectiveness of that care is abrogated because of the long wait. We are working hard to change that. We are looking at ways of getting more services to rural and regional areas.”
“We are about to announce an increased number of university placements for doctors to train in their local areas, which will make a huge difference around Australia. We still import around 40 per cent of our doctors into Australia from other countries. We need to train more of our own to stay in the areas where they train. I firmly believe that people living in rural and regional areas deserve the same quality of health care that people living in our cities get, but that requires funding, and this government is determined to do that. The investment of $8.5 billion in delivering bulk-billing incentives will deliver more than 18 million GP bulk-billed visits every year nationwide.”
“This government is making the changes necessary to improve that. I recently visited Wagga to open the new Wagga clinical school for the University of New South Wales. At this facility, medical students will be able to complete all of their training in Wagga, without having to go to the city. That's an initiative of the federal government. We'll train over a hundred local Wagga students to become doctors. They are therefore much more likely to stay in the local area, providing health care in Wagga and surrounds, than if they trained in the city. We have similar institutions in Albury-Wodonga, on the North Coast, in Bathurst and in Orange, which are run by various universities, all funded by the federal government.”
“I thank the member for Bowman for bringing this motion, as I always enjoy the opportunity to talk about health care and what our government is doing for this very important Australian institution called Medicare. I've been working in health care now for half a century—in fact, over half a century. Health care is changing in Australia, as it has done over the many decades I've been working in the industry. It is changing. To deal with those changes we need proper policy, and policy takes time to develop. Health care is changing from transactional visits funded through Medicare to managing chronic illness. We know that many people in Australia suffer from chronic illness. Their needs take time to deal with, and many people now find it difficult to see a GP after many years of neglecting GP numbers and GP renumeration.”
“We're working closely with state governments around the country to address the unique issues they face in their health systems when it comes to aged care. Our government is working to reduce the risk that aged-care providers will only profit from federal funding, by attributing increased funding to stronger standards and protections. We are doing what it takes to make our aged care system sustainable for the long-term, for the future. I want our aged residents to get the best care possible, and I am very proud to be part of a government that is providing the best care we can for older Australians.”
“In our 2024-25 budget, we allocated $111 million to strengthening the regulatory capacity of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission. We are also well underway in allocating an additional 83,000 supported home places this financial year to help with wait times and get older Australians back to the people and places they love. I know that there is a problem with people waiting in our acute hospital beds for aged-care placements. There are some also waiting for NDIS placements, that is true, but we as a government are working on policies that will gradually, over time, reduce those numbers waiting for beds, reduce those numbers waiting for support and provide high quality care that older Australians need.”
“And then later they were waiting for aged-care positions. The royal commission told us that the system was broken and neglected by those opposite, and Australians all agreed. According to the royal commission, in exposing the failures of those opposite, the system they left behind was unacceptable and unsustainable. They had nine years to fix it and they didn't. That's why the Albanese Labor government has acted. Instead of applying patchwork policies here and there, like the coalition opted to do for so many years, we're instead reforming it from the ground up. This takes time. It means stronger accountability, legally enshrined rights for older Australians, mandatory care minutes and major investments in workforce and infrastructure.”
“This, alongside our new $4.3 billion Support at Home program, will provide a high level of care for people in their homes and shows how we know what people need from in-home aged care and that we care about people in aged care. Whether it's the aged-care residents themselves or their families or the staff and carers who provide these services, everyone requires our government to commit to improving outcomes for all those involved. I've met with hundreds of constituents who are either aged-care residents themselves or have family involved in this important sector. One thing has been certain: people want and need change. For too long, older Australians were left waiting for the care they deserve. They were waiting for assessments. They were waiting to get people to provide support for them in their homes.”
“We live in an ageing country, and aged-care needs have increased over the last couple of decades. To develop proper aged-care policy takes time and takes really hard work. I was part of the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport when we started an investigation into aged care in 2016, when I was first elected. This ultimately led to the royal commission. What we found was disgraceful; it was dreadful. There'd been years and years of neglect under coalition governments. We saw dreadful care—in fact, no care in many areas. That's why, as a party in opposition, we worked hard on developing aged-care policy. Our new Aged Care Act, which came into effect on 1 November, marked a really significant turning point for aged care in Australia.”
“You may be a little taken aback by a paediatrician talking about aged care, but it is something that has been very close to my heart for a long period of time—in fact, long before politics. My mother-in-law was the matron of our local nursing home, the Campbelltown nursing home of Kilbride, for many, many years—over 20 years, in fact. My children grew up being taken to the nursing home to be cared for by their grandmother until we could pick them up after our work et cetera, so I've had a long involvement with aged care. Of course, upon entering politics, I've had involvement with all my local aged-care providers, all of whom I'm pretty impressed with. I'm very grateful for the efforts of the staff in local nursing homes around our area, of which there are many. One of the surest facts of life, of course, is that we all age.”
“They did a wonderful vision of the history of nurses in war throughout Australia's history and world history. That was a real celebration of these women who have done so much to improve the care of soldiers during all the wars that Australia has participated in since the beginning of white settlement. It is really a great school with a great legacy, and it was a great privilege to be part of their journey.”
“I'd also like to thank Mary Leask, the college's principal, for her steadfast support for her community, for the wider community and for the historical society. For me I think it's incredibly important that we all know more about our history, as what we have now has been formed by those who came before us. We must remember our history. The Macarthur region is incredibly vibrant, with a rich history that predates colonial history as well with rich Indigenous history. I would like more of our residents to be made aware of this history, and, through the work of Fran and Joanne, this history is being told and delivered to those today and will indeed help those of the future. I'd also like to thank the college for their history of the war nurses, of which my mother-in-law was one.”
“I recently visited the school to meet with two of their fantastic teachers Fran Musico Rullo and Joanne Cavallin, who are extremely active in researching and recording the rich history of both St Patrick's College and the wider region. Using their incredible knowledge and passion and after extensive research, Fran and Joanne have teamed up with the Campbelltown & Airds Historical Society to publish their book titled Our Legacy of Light , which covers the 185 years of St Patrick's College—a wonderful achievement. I'm extremely thankful to Fran and Joanne for their tireless efforts in producing this book, as well as Stephen Coppins and Julie Crowley from the Campbelltown & Airds Historical Society for helping publish this incredible work.”
“If we cast our minds back to 1840, we were a continent of colonies, with Queen Victoria as the ruling monarch; Queensland wasn't yet founded; and the first known photograph of Niagara Falls in the United States had just been taken—all historic moments, you will agree. However, another historic moment was occurring in Campbelltown in my electorate, with the foundational stone for St Patrick's College first being laid by the Benedictine monk Bishop John Polding after the school was founded by the Irish Catholic residents of the Campbelltown region. This makes St Patrick's College for girls the oldest Catholic independent school in Australia, and it's a privilege to work with and support this wonderful school community as they celebrate their 185th anniversary. I might add that Senator Deborah O'Neill is an old girl of the school.”
“I believe it's time to stop pivoting and for netball to be included in the Brisbane Olympics. It's time that the Australian Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee recognise the Australian passion that is netball, and, to help promote local clubs and competitions, netball deserves its place among the world's greatest sports at the Brisbane 2032 Games. We've seen new sports being added to the Olympic Games in the past. The additions have helped promote those sports to new audiences around the world, so Brisbane 2032 is the perfect opportunity to show the world our passion and skill for this wonderful game. I encourage anyone who shares my passion to head to the Netball Australia website and sign their petition. Together we can help promote and support Australian athletes.”
“Female participation in sport has grown exponentially in Australia over the past decade, with hundreds of thousands of young girls and women from across south-west Sydney and the wider Australia having joined their local sporting clubs across varying sporting codes. One sport in particular, netball, continues to grow and is the biggest team sport for women and girls in Australia. I'm a huge netball fan and I love watching my wife, my daughters and now my granddaughters play netball, and I proudly support family members when they play for their local teams. As a medical professional I'm always in favour of people finding ways and means to remain socially and physically active. That's why I'm a proud supporter of Netball Australia's mission to get netball into the Brisbane Olympic Games in 2032.”
“The member for Robertson has already mentioned some of them. The urgent care centres have made dramatic improvements in access, particularly after hours. They've also reduced pressure on our emergency departments—a dramatic change. The coalition doesn't understand health care. It doesn't understand the importance of equitable access to health care. Unfortunately for them, the Australian population understood that and walked away from the coalition at the last election—I think in big part due to the coalition's very poor health policy. In fact they did no work on health policy at all. All we got from them was 'me too'. 'I think we'll agree with that,' said the coalition health spokesperson, but they really did no work on health policy. (Time expired)”
“We've funded Omico, the Australian genomic cancer medicine centre run by Professor David Thomas at Sydney university, improving access to genetically targeted treatments for cancer and improving life expectancies dramatically. We've funded the Zero Childhood Cancer Program, which for years tried to get federal government funding from the coalition. But we, the Labor government, funded it in our first term. In our second term we will do more to improve equitable access to genomically targeted treatments around Australia by funding these projects. The coalition, unfortunately, doesn't understand the importance of access to primary care. Our urgent care centres have dramatically improved access to primary care, particularly for people who are sick with chronic illness and have acute exacerbations.”
“And it's important to know that the coalition fudged their figures around bulk-billing by including in their bulk-billing statistics the pathology testing during the pandemic. That dramatically increased the apparent bulk-billing rates, which were in fact not true. It was the pathology tests that did it. We have made incredible improvements in access to some of the genetically targeted treatments for childhood diseases—as I mentioned, cystic fibrosis. But, for some of the inherited neurological disorders like spinal muscular atrophy, there have been dramatic improvements in access to genomically targeted medications, which are life changing for the children and for their families.”
“They were able to go to school full time. They didn't have to go in and out of hospital for wet dressings and sedation because of the severity of their eczema. It made a huge difference. We have changed the lives of many children with cystic fibrosis through markedly increasing access to the new genetically targeted cystic fibrosis medications, doubling the life expectancy of people with cystic fibrosis in this country almost overnight. The coalition understands the costs but never understands the value of health care. The bulk-billing incentives that we introduced in November 2023 have dramatically improved the bulk-billing rates of general practitioners in this country.”
“I'll start with 60-day prescribing, which was fought tooth and nail by the coalition. They never understood it. They never understood the importance of increasing prescribing from 30 days to 60 days. It made huge financial gains for families. It also saved time and effort and was a great boon to patients around Australia. The coalition never understood it and fought it tooth and nail. They've fought any changes to healthcare policy that have improved access to women's health care or that have improved access to some of the new medications—for example, dupilumab, which is a remarkable medication used for severe eczema. The coalition wouldn't fund it through the PBS. As soon as we came to power, we funded it through the PBS and changed the lives of many of the kids with severe eczema that I see. It changed their whole trajectory.”
“I'll just start by saying that the coalition understands the cost of everything, but it never understands the value, particularly the value of health care. For Labor, the value of health care is in our bones and has been for generations. We introduced Medibank and then Medicare. I started my practice on the same day that Medicare started in Australia, and it's been the backbone of health care in Australia for the last 40 years. Sussan Ley, the Leader of the Opposition, was responsible for a huge drop in funding for health care, reductions in bulk-billing and reductions in access to health care, and she should be ashamed of her time as a health minister in this country. For 10 years, the coalition did nothing but cut back on health, yet Labor, in its first term, made some really dramatic changes in health care.”
“I look forward to reading her final report in the next few days. Whilst the ANU has been in the spotlight recently, along with the whole university sector, I've been continually impressed by the students, such as Ava and the many I have hosted before, who demonstrate a great knowledge of how our system works. I encourage all my colleagues to take part in the ANU internships program in this parliament. It's been a great benefit to me, and I think it will be of great benefit to Australia's future.”
“I'm impressed with how the parliamentary program works. The interns all produce a thesis at the end of their time with me, and some of the information has been incredibly valuable. During the pandemic we had ANU students who also gave really valuable insights into the pandemic and the work in parliament. During her time in my office Ava has shown initiative, engaged in a highly professional manner and has continued to remain diligent in her studies. I'm very impressed with her. As part of the national internships program, students are required to complete a research project and a research report. Ava has chosen to report on a key interest of mine, that being the evaluation of Australia's official development assistance in Papua New Guinea and how it's affected health outcomes.”
“It's given the students a valuable insight into the shaping of national policy, particularly around health but also other areas, and in letting them know how our parliament works and how our parliamentarians themselves work. It's been an invaluable experience for me, and I've learnt a lot from our interns. Many of them have gone on to careers in public service, and I'm proud of that. I'm a strong believer in education and in empowering young people to become the leaders of tomorrow. I've really enjoyed my time in politics. Part of that is learning how other people and new generations are working and how they look at public policy. One of the reasons that I've enjoyed my time in this place is that I'm proud that the students that I've hosted are so talented. They are Australia's future, and I'm really impressed with them.”
“For the past month I've had the privilege of hosting Ms Ava Steinicke as an intern in my parliamentary office as part of the Australian National University internships program. As it's her last day interning with us, I believe it's appropriate to give her a big shout-out for the tremendous work she's done in my office. Ava is a bright, charismatic young woman who is in her final semester at ANU and about to complete a double degree in international relations and development studies. Since arriving in parliament in 2016, I'm proud to have been a participant in the ANU internships program, hosting interns in my parliamentary office. I think that they have learnt a lot, but I've also learnt a lot in this program.”
“This is a piece of legislation, something that you should be supporting in a bipartisan manner. I'm not going to lecture you about this, but one of the great things that Greg Hunt—the previous health minister—did during the pandemic was try to get us to adopt a bipartisan approach, and, for the most part, we did. The fact that you are opposing this legislation from the very beginning is a real travesty, and it's a real reflection of your lack of understanding of health policy. I really wish you would take this on board, from the bottom of my heart. This is something that is really important to me. It's really important to this parliament. It's really important to this country. And if you can find it in yourselves to take on board this legislation to support the CDC, it will make a huge difference to the health policy in this country.”
“The director-general will also be taking on roles such as those listed under the Biosecurity Act, the National Health Security Act and the National Occupational Respiratory Disease Registry Act, which is a fitting and resourceful thing to do. It's important that the director-general and the CDC do have oversight of the issues. The establishment of an advisory council to support the director-general adds an additional layer of expert oversight and strategic guidance. By drawing on a diverse mix of professionals, the council will guarantee the centre's advice and actions are grounded in the latest science, are responsive to the needs of different population groups and reflect a range of sector perspectives. In the last minute or so left to me I just want to say to the coalition that I wish you were on board with this.”
“We'll use state resources as well in our universities, research centres and hospitals. It will mean that we are able to respond faster and smarter to emerging threats. I saw this in my own hospitals during the pandemic, with not just equipment but understanding that there may be other treatments that can be used—some were not useful. We needed to be much more resilient and much more responsive to using new treatments as the evidence accumulated, and we were slow in some instances in doing that. We did fall down a little in some of our testing protocols and also, I think, in the use of our antivirals—with difficulty for many people to obtain antiviral treatments at the beginning of the disease when they are most effective. So I think that there are lots of things the CDC will be looking at.”
“While we need the centre now, we are also ensuring the success, sustainability, functionality and viability, allowing for its adaptation and evolution with our national needs, and that may include in the future looking at non-infectious diseases but also long-term public health threats such as obesity, type II diabetes and other public health issues. This bill is an opportunity for the CDC to deliver a more modern approach to national public health data to enable more accurate and faster detection of risks, more consistent response across borders and a strong foundation for pandemic planning and management in the future. The CDC will not duplicate existing work across governments but will complement and enhance national capacity through high-quality reporting and advising.”