Dr WASHER (3:07 PM) —My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister update the House on how new technology is helping deliver better health care to Australians?

Mr ABBOTT (Minister for Health and Ageing) —I thank the member for Moore for his question and I congratulate him on increasing his margin from six per cent to a very healthy 10.8 per cent—

Honourable members interjecting—

Mr ABBOTT —as many members opposite have done in the recent election. It is a fact that the most comprehensive major study of avoidable deaths in Australian health institutions suggested that 20 per cent of these were due to poor information or inadequate record keeping. So an integrated electronic health record should mean better care for patients and it should mean lower costs to taxpayers and to consumers. It should mean less need for patients to keep records and to carry information around with them. It should mean fewer expensive and invasive diagnostic tests. It should mean less overservicing and it should mean less misuse of prescription drugs.

Just about all the computers on all the health professionals' desks right around our country are already linked via the Internet. The challenge is to try to create a secure database with secure transmissions so that patients and health professionals can access the information they need precisely when they need it. In the last budget, the government committed $128 million to prepare for a national HealthConnect roll-out. In Tasmania, they have just concluded a trial which has proven the technology and helped to demonstrate the business case. I can inform the member for Moore and the House that the Commonwealth and the states have just established a National E-Health Transition Authority with the task of trying to ensure that health records move out of the horse-and-buggy era. We have to ensure that our health record system, no less than our medical treatment, remains the very best in the world.