Good morning, everyone. It is such a pleasure to welcome the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health to my electorate today for an incredibly important announcement. First of all, we’re here for the official opening of the Institute for Musculoskeletal Health. That is a wonderful thing in itself, but the Prime Minister’s got an additional announcement that he’ll make in a moment. I just want to remind people that we’ve got just up the road here, the amazing, world-leading Chris O’Brien Lifehouse Cancer Centre. That was a Labor Government investment. Down the road here, we’ve got the Charles Perkins Centre. Like this new institute, it’s a collaboration between Sydney University and the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Again, that was a Labor investment. It’s only ever Labor that invests big time in health and medical research that leaves a legacy for future generations. Thanks.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks very much, Tanya. And this is such an important day, and the opening of this new institute will make an enormous difference. 35 PhD students studying here to make a difference to their fellow Australians and indeed their fellow global citizens as well. Australia punches way above our weight when it comes to research and when it comes to making a difference to people’s lives. And this Institute will make an enormous difference over many, many years. Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions affect more than seven million Australians, and that’s not just older Australians. And we’ll hear from Sharyce in a short period of time. This can impact juveniles. It can impact people of any age and what it does is inhibit their capacity to fully enjoy life, to be able to participate in a way that many of us just take for granted.
I grew up just down the road here about a hundred metres away, and my mother suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. She suffered for a long period of time. She would have turned 90 on Monday, but she passed away at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital at just age 65. She was spent. She had such a difficult life and didn’t get the treatment that’s available today and didn’t get the treatment that she deserved in part because I think being a single mum, she didn’t have the same capacity to just have people fighting. And she was very generous in trying out new treatments as well. She was healthier, though, after getting appropriate treatment in her later years than she was perhaps when she was just in her forties. But it inhibited her capacity to even use a knife and fork or write or to be able to use her hands or her feet. She was in pain each and every day. She was one of those people though who never, ever, ever complained about her lot in life. She was very generous towards people. And so many of the people who, when I was growing up who were suffering from similar conditions were just like that. They just got on with life. But life is really tough for people with these conditions, and we need to do better. And I pay tribute today to the researchers, the doctors, the nurses, all those health professionals who look after others to improve their lives. I’ve seen how people can suffer very much firsthand, but I also know that with the right care and support, people can have a better quality of life.
And that’s why my Government is stepping up with a new hundred-million-dollar investment over 10 years in a new Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Conditions Research Mission. This will make an incredible difference to people. There has been substantial people come to see me and to see the Health Minister over the last couple of years arguing that this is something because it impacts more than seven million Australians is really worthy of this support and I’m very pleased that this will, I’m sure, create real change for Australians suffering from arthritis. We want Australian researchers working on better treatments, earlier diagnosis, and better outcomes for patients. And this is a practical investment that will make a real difference to people’s lives.
It’s consistent with what my Government prioritises, which is healthcare, putting Medicare at the centre of the health system, whether it be the new $25 billion that was the largest additional investment in our budget that we just handed down for public hospital funding throughout states and territories, whether it’s the 137 Urgent Care Clinics that we have opened. The now the 3,800 GP clinics that are fully bulk billed, the $25 medicines on the PBS, all of this fits together to prioritise better health outcomes for Australians. There’s no more important role that Government can play and I’m very proud of the work that my Government has done and in particular to single out Mark Butler, the work that he has done as Health Minister working with the sector. And this is another example, working with the University of Sydney, working with Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. We’re going to hear from Sharyce, who’s an arthritis consumer advocate, then from Louise Hardy, the CEO of Arthritis Australia, and then from Professor Peter Youssef, a senior staff specialist in rheumatology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and then from the Minister and then we’re happy to take some questions. But Sharyce, I want to particularly give you a shout out. It’s really important that consumers are prepared to speak about their life experience. It’s brave to do so. But I’m very pleased that you’ve joined us here today.
SHARYCE HELYAR, ADVOCATE: Thank you. My name is Sharyce Helyar. I was diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis when I was just four years old and then a few years after that, I was also diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. So, this year will be 23 years of living with arthritis, which is honestly most of my life and it’s all I can remember. So, since I was diagnosed, I have experienced fatigue, pain, and all of the things that come with having an autoimmune condition. It definitely hasn’t been easy, especially as a young child living with severe pain and that limited what I could do. And then as a child, you just want to be like everyone else and do what everyone else is doing. And I still feel that today as an adult. I’m still not able to do the things that I want to be able to do and that a normal healthy 28-year-old is doing.
So, it has been a journey definitely and I’m so grateful for this funding because this will improve the lives of me and anyone who’s diagnosed in the future. And my journey has been really challenging and I obviously don’t have time to go into everything, but if the people who are diagnosed in the future are able to have a journey that is more streamlined and is just overall not as challenging, then that’s all I can hope for because I wouldn’t wish my journey on anyone. So again, I want to thank Prime Minister, the Health Minister and Arthritis Australia, because this gives me hope for my future, what it will look like, and for the future of other Australians living with arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. So, thank you.
LOUISE HARDY, ARTHRITIS AUSTRALIA CEO: So firstly, I want to thank the Prime Minister and Minister Butler for what is a transformative investment and a historic day for arthritis research, a hundred-million-dollar new investment. These conditions are leading causes of chronic pain, disability, and lost workforce participation in Australia. They also cause major strain on our health system, costing over $16 billion a year. So, this Mission, this hundred million dollars really represents new hope for millions of Australians living with these conditions. It represents the hope of better treatments, better quality of life, and ultimately the hope of cures for these debilitating conditions. So, thank you on behalf of our arthritis community to the Albanese Government for listening and for taking this action.
PROFESSOR PETER YOUSSEF: I’d also like to echo the thanks to Prime Minister Albanese and Health Minister Butler for this sort of transformative grant for arthritis research. I think that this will make a big difference to people’s lives. When I first started working in rheumatology, I was an intern at Rachel Forster Hospital, and the ward was full of patients with disabilities. We don’t see that so much now because of the biological agents that we now have available in Australia, but despite that, there are still significant unmet needs. These agents have side effects, they’re expensive, they need to be taken long term, and we really need curative treatments. Also, the most common painful conditions in our community such as back pain and osteoarthritis we don’t have very good treatments for, and we need to look more at prevention and I think this sort of funding will allow us to do this.
I think this funding has come at a crucial time in arthritis and musculoskeletal research in Australia. We have world-leading researchers looking for cures for rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. We also have world-leading researchers in back pain, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, exercise, and also falls prevention and the best ways to use medicines, but really we need research into cures and we’ve set up a biobank that requires ongoing funding and hopefully some of this money will be used for that. But I think most importantly for me is that we have a highly intelligent and very motivated group of early and mid-career researchers who I think will now have some certainty in their work and will be able to continue working in research. I think this is really the value of this funding and I think at the end of all of this, we’ll have new cost-effective models of care that really will help everyone. I think that this funding is visionary and I would really like to, again, to thank the Prime Minister and the Minister for this significant funding. Thank you.
MARK BUTLER, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: Well, thanks everyone. I particularly want to thank Sharyce whom I’ve known for some years now. Sharyce is one of the most effective, articulate, compelling patient advocates that I’ve met with in my time as Health Minister and thank you for joining us again today in telling your personal story. 90 years ago, Billy Hughes as Health Minister, not someone the Labor Party tends to lionise, but Billy Hughes created the National Health and Medical Research Council, and he did it with the bold vision of making Australia punch above its weight in health and medical research. And we have consistently done that in the 90 years since then. We rank about seventh in the world in terms of health and medical research in spite of not ranking in the top 50 by population.
But in spite of those enormous achievements, what we have found is sometimes a lack of balance in the research effort and this is a classic case of that. Per person, the NHMRC funding of research for arthritis probably ranks at about $6 per person affected by the conditions compared to cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia and such like, which can be anywhere between $70 or $110 per person. And that’s really the beauty of the MRFF, because it allows government to create missions to determine priorities and then to allow the usual peer reviewed competitive process to take place to decide upon research projects. And that’s what we’re doing today.
Arthritis, as the Prime Minister and everyone else has said, is one of the most widespread chronic conditions alongside mental health in our community and we need to do more to understand the causes of it and the best way to treat it. And hopefully, as Peter said, one day cure some of these conditions. And that’s what this Mission will do. We haven’t plucked it out of thin air. I want to stress how much work Arthritis Australia has done to put this work together over a couple of years. It is compelling work that they’ve put together with the support of Research Australia. We know we’ve kicked the tyres on it very compellingly and we’re very confident that it will be a mission that makes real change for the lives of millions of Australians and given the way in which Australia leads in this area across the world for people right across Australia as well.
The hundred million dollars that the Prime Minister has announced is part of an increase in health and medical research funding of more than half a billion dollars that we announced in the last Budget. Already we’ve been able to announce additional funding for projects, world leading projects in epilepsy, in diabetes, in precision oncology and cancer, and to fund a new childhood and young adult cancer plan as well. So already we are adding real value to an already fantastic health and medical research effort in Australia, and I’m delighted the Prime Minister has been able to announce this today.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the Inquiry into the NDIS, there’s warnings that cuts to social and community participation will put participants in unsafe situations. Are you prepared to reconsider the scale of the proposed cuts?
MINISTER BUTLER: Well, we’re not going to provide a daily commentary on submissions that have been made to the NDIS Inquiry. Obviously, we’re watching it very closely. There have been thousands of written submissions that have been made that we’re also studying closely as well and we’ll wait to see the conclusion of the Inquiry before we reach any particular view about submissions that are being made. I do want to stress though that the plan that I announced many weeks ago now at the Press Club and it was part of the Budget that the Treasurer delivered in May was a very well developed plan that thought carefully about the way in which we could get the NDIS back on track, secure it for the long term, but very much still with people with disability at its centre. So, I’m not going to comment on submissions that are made on a daily basis through this Inquiry. We’re watching it closely. We’re studying the submissions that are being made and once the Inquiry delivers its report, we’ll obviously be in a position to consider our response.
JOURNALIST: Will you extend the Inquiry timeline?
MINISTER BUTLER: No, that’s not our intention. There have been thousands of submissions made. There are a number of days of public hearing. People are being given the opportunity to make submissions about the Bill that I presented that I pre-announced several weeks before the Budget with the very clear intention of allowing people to digest the plan that I announced at that time and to make submissions through a Senate Inquiry and in the many other ways in which we are engaging with the disability community. That includes regular meetings with the disability organisations, meetings that particularly Minister McAllister is having with State and Territory Ministers as well. So we’re confident that the timeline that we’ve set out the need to get this bill through the Parliament as quickly as possible before the winter break is the right plan, a plan that will ensure that we start down the path of getting this enormously important scheme back on track while also obviously considering the views of the disability community.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, Pauline Hanson says that she’s going to target Labor seats at the next election. She names Chris Bowen, Tony Burke, Andrew Giles, Madeleine King. They’re not Coalition MPs, Prime Minister. Are you worried that One Nation’s support might spill over into urban seats in metro cities?
PRIME MINISTER: We’ll continue to campaign against the three right-wing parties. What I noticed today is the extraordinary statement by Tony Pasin, a Shadow Minister saying that the Liberal Party should give up on trying to win seats, should step aside so One Nation are the one right wing party going forward and that in return, One Nation wouldn’t run in some seats where the Liberal Party wants to contest. That says it all about the way that the once mainstream Liberal Party has become just a fringe party, almost giving up two years before an election is held. We’re very confident that we’ll continue to put forward comprehensive policy plans. You need to govern a country in a way that looks after the full range of policy suites with solutions, not just identifying problems, but importantly coming up with solutions.
The announcement here today is an example of my Government and the work that we’re doing in health, for example, of the half a billion dollars extra for medical research that was in our Budget together with the $25 billion additional hospital funding, the making Urgent Care Clinics permanent, going forward making a difference, the tripling of the bulk billing incentive for GPs, the Cheaper Medicines making a difference for people’s living standards as well.
Pauline Hanson and One Nation have voted against all of the improvements that have been made on living standards, have described things like free TAFE as being “waste”, have opposed measures such as Same Job, Same Pay. The Labor party was the only party that put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission about a rise in the minimum wage, which occurred just a couple of weeks ago. So, we’ll continue to be concentrating on good policy and we won’t be distracted from making a difference each and every day that we’re in Government.
JOURNALIST: She says that she smashed you in the fundraising race, she raised more than a million dollars.
PRIME MINISTER: Did she though? Did she? What evidence is there? It is an example of slogans being put forward, not substance, and people can say all of these things, they get a run in the media. They had an ad for their fundraising campaign, effectively, free ad in one of the mainstream publications here yesterday. We’ll continue to actually be interested in making a difference to people’s lives, and that is what we will focus on.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, do you believe that Pauline Hanson has raised $1.5 million? Do you suspect that the ticker might have been fake?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, you work it out. I have no idea. This is someone who got a plane worth more than that given to her by Australia’s richest person. So, that pales into insignificance with the size of a single donation which was given, showing, I think, the interests that One Nation represent. It’s not battlers. They vote against battlers each and every time.
JOURNALIST: This morning we’ve seen new strikes in Iran. What does it mean for Australians’ fuel prices and what will happen with the fuel excise?
PRIME MINISTER: We are deeply concerned about this escalating crisis. We’ve continued to call for a de-escalation because of the human impact that it will have on people in the Middle East, but also the global impact it’s having on global inflation and on our economy here, like every economy in the world is being impacted by this conflict. So, we want to see a de-escalation. We’ll continue to examine the issues including the issue of the price of fuel. It is remarkable that there is more fuel in Australia today than there was on 28 February when this conflict began and that comes in spite of the fact that the conservative leaders, one of the Opposition Leaders, Angus Taylor, said that there would be restrictions on people’s access to fuel around Easter time and criticised us for engaging with our partners in Southeast Asia to ensure that those fuel and fertiliser supplies were available for Australians. We’ll continue to do that work. We’re investing substantial funds in underwriting the work of Export Finance Australia to purchase fuel on the spot market. We’re continuing to engage, I engaged with the Chinese Ambassador just a couple of days ago confirming that we will be purchasing jet fuel from China, but also that fertiliser would be available there. We’ll continue to work each and every day in the interest of Australians.
JOURNALIST: And the fuel excise?
PRIME MINISTER: I just said we’ll continue to monitor those issues which are there at the moment. The price of fuel has decreased substantially from where it was. It’s had an impact. It’s decreased by much more than the 32 cents that between the Commonwealth and the GST adjustment means by much more than that and that has made a difference. We’re very conscious about the pressures that are on people, not just individuals, but of course diesel is higher than it was on 28 February, but it has also come down substantially and diesel’s so important for farmers and for the trucking industry to deliver around Australia we have of course reduced the heavy vehicle user charge to zero as well.
JOURNALIST: What about the human toll of the ongoing conflict? Is that concerning?
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, that’s the first point that I made. The first point that I made was a human toll of the conflict on people in the Middle East.
JOURNALIST: Australian law enforcement officials were fired on by tobacco smugglers in our northern waters yesterday. Do you concede that the illicit tobacco industry is fuelling organised crime and are the Government’s policies on tobacco broken?
PRIME MINISTER: What we’re doing, you’ve given your answer – the answer to your question is in your question. What happened was that there was a firing on law enforcement. We’re enforcing the law. We’re taking the strongest action that’s ever been taken against the illicit tobacco trade. We’ll continue to do so, and we’ll continue to do what is necessary. We’ve ramped up all of the funding for those organisations working with Border Force, but also of course working with the police authorities in state jurisdictions as well as the AFP.
JOURNALIST: Is it appropriate for a property manager to tell a tenant to remove the Australian flag? And since speaking out, that tenant has actually seen a rent increase. What’s your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER: I support the Australian flag.
JOURNALIST: Will you, just on tobacco, consider reducing the tobacco excise?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we’ve just had a budget. We’ve just had a budget. And so, our policies as they exist are in that budget, but we are taking action against the illicit tobacco trade. We’ll continue to do so.
JOURNALIST: ABS figures show that illicit tobacco has actually risen, there’s more of it in the community. Does that not show that the policies are broken?
PRIME MINISTER: We’re continuing to take action and we’re taking action, whether it be the enforcement of suppliers are shutting down, of shops that are selling illicit tobacco, the taking of action of fines and taking police action against what is of course a crime.
JOURNALIST: Just on the gun buyback you announced on Bondi, are you prepared to run a national buyback even if it’s just New South Wales participating [INDISTINCT]?
PRIME MINISTER: We are working with the states and territories. We would encourage every state and territory to participate, but we will work with any state that wants to be a part of what is reducing the number of guns in our community. We’ve said that. We’ll do that on a shared basis. New South Wales is doing that.
After Port Arthur, the country came together on this issue. It’s a pity that in the Senate, for example, the three right wing parties all voted against this, but the National Party, of course, and One Nation, two thirds of the right wing parties voted against everything post Bondi having demanded that Parliament be resumed, having demanded the action be taken, they then voted against it and knocked off the leader of the Liberal Party and the leader of the National Party in the weeks following. That says it all about the dysfunction. The next election is two years away, but it’s very clear that what it will be about is Labor as the only mainstream party that is concerned with everyday Australians and making a difference that’s prepared to govern across the suite of policy issues to make a difference for people’s lives, whether it’s strengthening Medicare, better access to education, access to housing for young Australians not making it something of the past, making sure an economy that grows, making sure that people get skills and training as well for the jobs of the future, the clean energy transition, making sure that we bring in new industries, a Future Made in Australia supporting Australian manufacturing. That’s what my Government will be presenting. On the other side, there’ll be three right wing parties all competing against each other for a race to the bottom. Thanks.
