Health News at Your Fingertips

With Ed Husic having concluded his answer, question time ends.

One more to go.

Tamsin Rose will have a post on this for you in just a moment:

Josh Taylor

Telstra reaches agreement with ACCC after accusations of attempting to hinder Optus deployment of 5G

Telstra registered hundreds of new sites to use its low-band spectrum in a move that Optus said was “gaming the system” to delay the company’s 5G network rollout.

Optus won the rights to use all available 900MHz spectrum at an auction at the end of last year, with intention to use it for 5G.

Telstra currently holds a licence for parts of the 900MHz spectrum band until 30 June 2024, but had not registered a new site to use the spectrum since 2016.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said in December last year it would consider allowing Optus early access to the 900MHz spectrum band, and in January Telstra registered 315 sites in major cities, or inner regional areas to use the 900MHz spectrum band. It subsequently deregistered 153 of these sites.

The company has now made an undertaking with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to deregister the remaining 162 sites after the ACCC investigated and said it was concerned the registrations “had the substantial purpose or likely of preventing or hindering Optus from deployment of its 5G network”

ACCC’s commissioner, Liza Carver, said:

Telstra’s undertaking will ensure Optus is not hindered from expanding its 5G rollout, giving more Australians access to a choice of 5G services in regional and metropolitan Australia.

Telstra disagreed with the ACCC’s findings, arguing the focus was “on improving service for our customers, including relieving 3G congestion in some parts of regional Australia.”

A Telstra spokesperson said:

We identified an opportunity to reduce congestion in a small number of places by moving 3G traffic onto our 900 MHz spectrum, given it is unused and we own until 2024. At the same time this would free up 850 MHz spectrum to meet the growing demands of our 5G customers.

The spokesperson said Telstra filed the undertaking to avoid a case being drawn out, costly, and time-consuming, and it would use the 900MHz spectrum in areas where Optus’ 5G rollout is not advancing.

Optus’ VP of regulatory and public affairs, Andrew Sheridan, said:

Optus was concerned that our major competitor was gaming the system to delay our 5G rollout to gain an unfair advantage and deny Australians choice.

We are pleased with the actions taken by the ACCC to promote 5G competition for Australia’s consumers and businesses.

While Husic completes his dixer which could have been a press release, Josh Taylor has an update for you

Ed Husic gets a dixer.

Moving on.

Butler: rural priority changes will begin to undo damage to Medicare

Andrew Gee to Mark Butler:

Why has the government changed the distribution priority area classification for rural doctor shortages to now include outer metropolitan areas, in a move the Rural Doctors Association of Australia warns will wreak havoc in the bush and it could cost lives of rural and remote patients? Why is the government putting the lives of rural Australians at risk?

Butler:

…the position we inherited from those opposite is that it has never been harder, never been more expensive to so a doctor than it became under this government. After nine long years of cuts and neglect to Medicare.

Let me just run through for context what exactly led to the decisions I’ve been asked about: back in 2019, the former government ripped away the ability to recruit overseas trained doctors from a 140 GP regions. 140 GP regions, which for years have depended upon overseas-trained doctors to fill their consulting rooms, had that removed in the stroke of a pen.

I can tell you on this side a number of MPs organised discussions with patient groups and with doctors to run through what that had meant to those local communities. Members in the Hunter Valley, the member for Shortland, Patterson, the candidate for Leichhardt, and the senator for Far North Queensland said to me what that meant for the people of Cairns. What it meant for the Hunter Valley to have those consulting rooms hollowed out … with the stroke of a pen by the former government.

And we took an evidence-based approach to this question. We had a long Senate inquiry that took evidence from patient groups, from doctor’s groups, local communities about what exactly that had meant for people wanting to go in and see a GP. It lifted the lid on the impact of that decision by the Morrison government back in 2019.

Now the former government had pretended recruiting a doctor in the Hunter Valley was the same as recruiting a doctor in Mosman. After three years of their experiment, ripping out from regional Australia the ability to recruit those GPs…

Paul Fletcher tries his luck with another point of order:

The question asked specifically about the Rural Doctors Association of Australia warning this will wreak havoc in the bush.

There is no point of order.

Butler:

We make no apology for making it easy to see a doctor in this country or strengthen Medicare after nine long years of cuts and neglect.

As the member and those opposite should know, a range of incentives continue to be in place: for example the workplace incentive program that provides up to $60,000 additional incentives for those modified Monash areas, number three to seven, that continue to provide additional incentive to [go to] rural health areas.

There is still much to do to undo the damage of those opposite.

Strengthening Medicare can’t happen overnight, but we make no apology for starting to undo the damage inflicted after nine long years of their cuts and neglect to the Medicare system.

Bowen: if Coalition wanted to engage with climate legislation they could have instead of just opposing it

Ted O’Brien (who, a lot of you have been asking? Why the shadow minister for climate change, is who) has a question for Chris Bowen. which shows where the Coalition plan on taking climate discussion on whichever channel will have them:

The leader of the Greens has been successful in changing the government’s emissions legislation to stop government agencies investing in gas projects. Given the minister has joined in questioning the importance of gas, can he guarantee his support for the Beetaloo Basin Project and other important gas projects? What will be the cost to the economy and jobs of this concession to the Greens?

Bowen:

If the opposition wanted to engage in conversation with the government they could have instead of opposing the bill. What we have done is put the climate targets in. If you’re not in favour of targets, you don’t require government organisations to work with them.

Butler: good climate policy is good public health policy

Dr Sophie Scamps has a question from the crossbench, restoring some much needed order to the chamber. There is big FriYAY energy in the chamber, but we still have tomorrow to go. And you know, several national crises, including that people can’t afford to buy produce.

Scamps:

The Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and others have declared that climate change is a health emergency. I commend the government’s commitment to developing a national strategy on climate change, health and wellbeing, as this will begin to address this emergency. Would the minister please outline to the House the contents of the strategy and the timeline for delivery?

Mark Butler (the minister for health, who gives an actual response):

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the member for Mackellar for this important question. The World Health Organisation has described climate change as the greatest threat to public health in the 21st century.

They estimate that between 2030 and 2050, 250,000 people every year will lose their lives as a direct result of a warming planet. And the impact in Australia will be profound. In a climate that already pushes us right up against the limits of human tolerance, heat-related deaths will increase.

The health effects are more frequent and intense, extreme weather events will grow substantially and disease will start to creep southward.

The dengue fever exposure zone, for example, is expected to move as far south as Rockhampton by the middle of the century and as far south as northern New South Wales by the end of the century. Mr Speaker, we’re already seeing this.

Separate from the tragic fatalities caused by the Black Saturday bushfires more than a decade ago, that heatwave in Victoria caused 374 heat-related deaths, as well as a huge increase in callouts to the ambulance service.

Australia lags the rest of the world in climate and health after nine long years of denial and inaction.

But, Mr Speaker, that will change under this government. The first and the most important step obviously is to take real action on climate change.

And I congratulate my friend and colleague, the minister for climate change and energy, for the bill he’s brought before this House and for the constructive engagement by the member for Mackellar.

On this side we know good climate policy is good public health policy.

Renewable energy is not just good for the climate, it also removes dangerous particulate pollution from the atmosphere and improves public health, as do electric vehicles.

I’ve already commissioned advice from my department about the implementation of the election to which the member for Mackellar refers and I’ve had an early discussion with state and territory health ministers about how we can work together, Labor and Liberal alike, to reduce emissions from the health sector, as well as improving its capability to deal with the risks and the opportunities that come with climate change.

Mr Speaker, the legislation before the House today is an important first step in ending nine long years of denial and inaction. But alongside sectors like manufacturing and transport, energy, agriculture, and mining, the health sector also needs a focused plan to deal with climate change. And we are getting on with the job of making that plan.

The next dixer has a a “what options have the government rejected” attached to it, which immediately causes an eye twitch, after three years of “alternate approaches”.

Further proof everyone eventually becomes what they hate.

In case you missed it, here is one of the reasons for Labor’s good mood – Adam Bandt’s press club speech:

The government side of the chamber looks like it needs a lay down after that.

To be fair, it doesn’t take much though, these days.

Chalmers: Labor has been consistent on what it would do for cost of living

Angus Taylor is up with a question for Jim Chalmers, and the government side of the house acts like Santa just announced the elves could unionise:

Can the treasurer name a single new initiative announced since coming to government that will address the rising cost of living pressures facing Australian households and businesses?

Chalmers:

Well, thank you very much, Mr Speaker, for the call. Thank you to the member for Hume for the question. But most of all, Mr Speaker, from the very bottom of my heart, can I thank whoever thought it was a good idea to get Angus to ask a question about the cost of living.

Now the member for Hume is very chirpy now about the cost of living but when the Australian people really needed him to speak up about that 20% increase in electricity prices that he intervened to keep quiet about during the election, he was absolutely nowhere to be found.

And the same as with the captain’s call made by the leader of the opposition … [who] said they should extend the petrol excise relief. The member for Hume was asked eight times in a press conference yesterday afternoon, does he agree with the leader of the opposition, and he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it.

Now we have been consistent, right throughout this conversation. We have said that our priority on the cost of living is to implement the commitments that we took to the election, that the prime minister and everyone on this side of the House took to the election. And those commitments are around making childcare cheaper. And more affordable for more people. Our commitments …

Taylor has a point of order on relevance. There is no point of order, says the Speaker.

(Labor MPs are heckling Taylor, saying “stay down Angus”, while Murph tells me Ed Husic says “you only get one Angus in your life”)

Chalmers:

The budget in October will contain a range of new initiatives which we took to the election and won the support of the Australian people for. Cheaper childcare, cheaper medicines, a wages policy to get wages growing again in this country after a decade of deliberate wage suppression and wage stagnation that those opposite chased when it came to their economic policies.

And so what we’ve said all along is when you inherit a budget which is absolutely heaving with a trillion dollars in Liberal party debt, you’ve got to work out what your priorities are, and our priorities are childcare, and skills, and the cost of medicine, and getting wages growing again, investing in the energies of the future, cleaner and cheaper, more reliable energy: all of the issues that we took to the election and won a mandate for. In many ways [that’s] the reason why we’re on this side of the House and you, thankfully, are on that side of the House. So we’ve been consistent all along.

Now when it comes to the cost of living you cannot take those opposite seriously.

This is the party that called for fiscal responsibility at the same time as they said we should shovel billions more out the door. This is the party that demands an invite to a job summit they want cancelled. This is the party, if you’re to believe the wise words of the Financial Review, this is the party that got John Howard in to teach them about the future.

Well, you can’t believe a word those opposite say about the cost of living. When it comes to the member for Hume in particular, when it comes to the cost of living, he should be ashamed of himself.

Inside every speaker there are two wolves; a Dugald and a Milton. And they are constantly at war with each other.

(This is a niche joke on many levels and if you get it, you may be following both memes and politics a bit too closely. If you don’t get it, congratulations on having a life.)

Nola Marino (the member for Forrest) who has been very quiet in this new parliament, has a question on … the burning issue of the CFMEU.

On the day the construction watchdog was giving evidence against the CFMEU officials, accused of sexualising, demeaning and humiliating a female labourer and abusing, threatening and elbowing a female health and safety inspector, the CFMEU donated $65,000 to Labor’s federal campaign. Prime minister, haven’t you said it’s time to change the culture? That means too many women aren’t safe at work. Why are you, prime minister, compromising this principle to protect the CFMEU thugs?

Milton Dick:

I ask the member to resume her seat. About 40 seconds ago I said not to do exactly what you said. So … I’ll ask her to rephrase the question and not use that terminology. I call the member for Forrest. Start the clock.

Marino:

Thank you. My question is to the prime minister. On the day the construction watchdog was giving evidence against CFMEU officials, accused of sexualising, demeaning and humiliating a female labourer and abusing, threatening and elbowing a female health and safety inspector, the CFMEU donated $65,000 to Labor’s federal campaign. Prime minister, it’s time to change the culture that means too many women aren’t safe at work. Why are you compromising this principle to protect the CFMEU thugs?

(But she has run out of time.)

Dick:

There … unfortunately there was no question in there. It’s a wise lesson for everyone when you’re drafting questions to make sure that principle is adhered to.

So Marino doesn’t get her question in and the house moves on.

Back in the house and Tony Burke decides to troll the opposition by pointing out that “you” is being used (he means in the point of orders) instead of titles.

Tamsin Rose

Back to the NSW inquiry for a moment:

Amy Brown: Ayres reactions would have had ‘a level of influence’ over Barilaro job decision

John Barilaro’s appointment to the job was progressed by Investment NSW after then-trade minister Stuart Ayres had spoken with colleagues about it, according to agency head Amy Brown.

She told the inquiry that the measure was her “final check”.

She said that if when Ayres had raised the decision with colleagues it had been perceived as “particularly controversial or caused material negative reaction” then it would have had a “level of influence” over her final decision.

She reported Ayres came back to her and said it was “good to go”.

Brown earlier also gave evidence that she had checked the position appointment with the secretary of the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Michael Coutts-Trotter.