Mrs D’ATH (2:32 PM) —My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister advise the House—

Mr Morrison interjecting—

The SPEAKER —The member for Petrie will start again for the member for Cook’s benefit.

Mrs D’ATH —Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the—

The SPEAKER —The member for Petrie will resume her seat, because the Manager of Opposition Business is now asking me a question or has a point of order.

Mr Pyne —Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The reason that the member for Cook is a bit unruly is that the member for Durack did not got the opportunity to finish explaining what he wanted to table.

The SPEAKER —The member for Sturt will resume his seat. He cannot justify people’s unruly behaviour in any manner. I suggest to the member for Sturt that an occupant of the chair gets wary of devices being used to place on the record comments that are out of order. In the case of the member for Durack—and it is a blessing for me—he exactly identified the document that he wished to have tabled. He then decided that he would go on to describe it or put a case. That was unfortunate for him, because I can say that, when I asked whether House gave leave for the tabling, the document had been clearly identified. Leave was not granted. I will not allow people to use devices to place on the record argument. The member for Petrie has the call.

Mrs D’ATH —My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Will the minister advise the House of the rollout of e-health and telehealth advancements and how these have been received?

Ms ROXON (Minister for Health and Ageing) —I thank the member for Petrie for her question. She, I know, is one of the members in North Brisbane who is very pleased with the lead implementation sites that are currently contracted to provide e-health services in three geographic areas across the country: northern Brisbane, the Hunter Valley and in eastern Melbourne. GP Partners in Brisbane have been leading advocates for the benefits of e-health and for the enormous potential, not just when we combine e-health and telehealth in terms of changing Medicare and providing different support for after hours GP services but when we use the power of broadband to ensure that more and more people have access in their own homes. This will also enable teleconferencing and make it possible for GPs and nurses to sit with patients and talk with specialists in the middle of town or perhaps many thousands of kilometres away. Those things will become reality.

We have already allocated $20 million worth of investments in those three lead sites. But there is another $55 million that will shortly be available. Expressions of interest will be called for. This will provide benefits for many communities, but particularly for regional communities where there is a great thirst for using new technology and changes and reforms to our health system to deliver better services. These investments and our commitment to introducing an electronic health record, to advances in telehealth and to the National Broadband Network have been widely endorsed. From the health professions, we have the support of the AMA, the Nurses Federation, the College of GPs, the divisions of GPs, pathologists and the Consumer Health Forum. I know that in the audience today there are paramedics, radiologists and others who see this as the opportunity to at last unleash the potential to provide services to our diverse population, many of whom are often enormous distances from places where particular specialised services can be made available. We are determined to make sure that our health system is modernised to make the most of these services and we are determined to make sure that with the implementation and rollout of the National Broadband Network we allow more technology—perhaps technology that we have not even yet imagined—to be developed to provide solutions that meet the needs of the community.

Unfortunately, despite the widespread community support for these investments, there is one notable difference. I have been asked about the responses to these investments and, unfortunately, we know that the Liberal Party not only opposed our millions of dollars of investment in e-health but opposed our investments in telehealth and the National Broadband Network. The great potential for what will be available in communities across the country is going to be held back if the Liberal Party is able to get its way and stop these investments.