Senator CROSSIN (7:23 PM) —I rise to speak tonight about smoking, heart disease and, in particular, the Northern Territory government's lack of commitment to funding prevention programs. Two weeks ago the Heart Foundation, when celebrating its 40th birthday, praised the generosity of the Australian people, whose donations have greatly assisted the foundation in its mission of reducing heart disease in our community. The research carried out by the Heart Foundation provides important information which can be used in the fight against heart disease, and this information is often most powerfully channelled through the medium of television and video.

Three months ago, during National Heart Week, I had the pleasure of attending the launch of a video called Listen to your heart. This short video, produced by the Heart Foundation in Darwin, tackles the very serious level of heart disease in Australia's indigenous community. The video with its simple messages and humour, using boxer James Swan as a role model, was impressive, and I congratulate both the Heart Foundation and those who were involved in producing the video on the results of their efforts. The aim of the video is to promote the reduction of lifestyle factors which increase the risk of heart disease and to encourage people to give up smoking, to adopt healthy eating patterns and to get more exercise. The distribution of this video to Aboriginal communities will be a small but important step in the effort to reduce heart disease in our indigenous communities.

At its launch, the video was introduced by the Director of the Northern Territory Heart Foundation, Dr Chris Burns. Dr Burns told the assembled crowd that heart disease and stroke had reached epidemic proportions in Australia's indigenous community. In this context, he acknowledged that the video was a small but important contribution towards reducing heart disease amongst indigenous people. He also talked about the higher prevalence of juvenile smoking in the Northern Territory and pointed to the alarming differences between national and Territory rates of heart disease. The rate of heart disease in the Northern Territory is 1½ times the national average. But the facts on indigenous heart disease rates are particularly frightening. Indigenous Australians between the ages of 25 and 64 have seven to nine times greater risk of death from heart disease and stroke than other Australians. Unfortunately, around 40 per cent of all heart attacks and strokes cannot be fully explained by the risk factors we already know about, so some aspects of heart disease are still puzzling medical scientists.

However, the message that came through from both Dr Burns and the video was loud and clear: when it comes to heart disease, prevention is better than cure. Some people might see this as a tired old cliche, a fact that is so blindingly obvious that it is barely worth wasting breath on. We believe that people have long since got the message—but perhaps not. Dr Burns went on to share some more statistics about rates of heart disease in the Territory and in Australia's indigenous community which might seem even more shocking than the ones I have already mentioned. Most people now know that smoking increas es the risk of several serious health conditions, including heart disease. The real message is getting people to stop as well as preventing young Australians from starting to smoke in the first place. This involves putting in place a range of programs which deter young people from starting to smoke and different strategies aimed at helping people to quit the habit.

Governments in all states have recognised this by committing funds to smoking prevention and cessation programs. Yet the Northern Territory government has shown less commitment to funding tobacco programs than any other state or territory government. Given the high incidence of smoking-related illness in the Northern Territory, this is particularly disturbing. It is astonishing that, while the Northern Territory government receives an estimated $48 million in revenue from tobacco, it spends only $500,000 of this on smoking prevention programs. What is worse is that it has shown little interest in policing the sale of tobacco to juveniles. It was recently revealed that, since legislation prohibiting the sale of tobacco was introduced, there has been only one such charge. The health minister's reluctance to see there is a need for more resources to police the sale of tobacco to juveniles is particularly concerning, given reports that smoking prevalence is growing amongst Territory schoolchildren.

The Northern Territory government's shameful record on tobacco control reached its peak this year when it received the Australian Medical Association's Dirty Ashtray Award. It managed to achieve this embarrassing title by scoring zero for performance on a range of tobacco control measures. These included a zero for restrictions on smoking in outdoor public places, a zero for point of sale advertising restrictions, a zero for regulation of nicotine and a zero for industry accountability.

During National Heart Week, the Northern Territory Health Minister, Steve Dunham, was asked on radio about the level of government spending on smoking prevention programs. His response was stunningly evasive. He insisted that spending on smoking prevention was not limited to half a million dollars. Why? Because the Northern Territory government spends millions of dollars on hospital treatment of people with smoking related illnesses. Even the interviewer seemed amazed that the health minister could attempt to dodge the real issue in such an obvious way. The point of smoking prevention programs is to stop heart disease developing in the first place. The minister's claim that money spent on hospital treatment of smoking related illness could in any way be considered as money spent on smoking prevention is ridiculous.

The Country-Liberal government have talked a lot recently about the overburdened public hospital system and the cost of providing health services in the Northern Territory. In fact, they were so concerned about the cost of hospital care that they recently considered privatising the entire public hospital system. But primary prevention could go a long way to relieving the burden on the public hospital system. It would go a long way to preventing people from developing the diseases which put them in hospital in the first place. But when it comes to divvying up the government's spoils from people's unhealthy habits, primary prevention barely gets a look in; the purse strings seem to be drawn very tightly.

It is a pity that the attention currently being given to illicit drugs seems to have diverted the attention of governments away from the issue of tobacco smoking and its health effects. We should not forget that tobacco is a dangerous and addictive drug, claiming many more lives than either marijuana or heroin. In particular, heart disease is claiming more lives in the Northern Territory than anywhere else in Australia and the association with smoking is clear. The Northern Territory health department's own figures prove this. In the Northern Territory, smoking has been shown to double the risk of heart disease. With 35 per cent of the population smoking, much higher than the national average of 25 per cent, smoking cessation should be treated as a serious public health issue and funded accordingly. It is high time the Country-Liberal government used more of the bounty it reaps from tobacco to prevent this dangerous habit. If the Northern Territory govern ment is serious about reducing the level of preventable chronic disease and death associated with smoking, it should do the right thing and commit the resources to smoking prevention and tobacco regulation.

In closing, I would like to reiterate the words of my colleague from the Northern Territory Senator Grant Tambling in relation to Sergeant Huitson's death in the previous fortnight. The words that Senator Grant Tambling said are true: it has shocked the Territory community. Along with many others, I attended Sergeant Huitson's funeral last Saturday. The police community is a big family. It is not only his immediate family that were most upset by his death but every member of the police force and most members of the community in the Territory. I congratulate Grant for putting on record the efforts that Glen Huitson made to the Territory and I would also like to put on record my sympathy for his family and my heartfelt thanks for the contribution he made to the Territory during his short life.