Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (17:22:17) — (13 755) My adjournment request is to the Minister for Health. The action I seek is a collaboration between the Generation Victoria (Gen V) project and the postcodes of disadvantage to help them again become postcodes of hope. Gen V is a world-first initiative announced today that will transform Victoria into a living laboratory to ensure better health, development and wellbeing for children and their families.

More than 100 000 Victorian babies will provide clues to the factors that influence the healthy development of children in one of the world's largest longitudinal studies of children. Gen V will provide comprehensive data to help guide researchers and governments in tackling issues including obesity, allergies, infection, social exclusion, poor mental health, learning and chronic health conditions such as diabetes and autism spectrum disorder. It will follow babies born in 2020 and 2021 for five years to create a holistic picture of the health, wellbeing and development of children, generating broad and continuously expanding data that can be used to inform policy and service delivery.

The modem epidemic we confront can be summed up by this insight from the head of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Professor Kathryn North: one in 10 children have food allergies, one in five children born in disadvantage are intellectually impaired before they get to school and do not catch up, one in four children have mental health problems and one in three are obese or overweight. Social determinants of health mean the poor and marginalised are hardest hit. The Grattan Institute's report of last year Perils of Place said:

Australia's health system is consistently failing some communities. Places such as … Broadmeadows and Frankston in Victoria, have had appalling rates of potentially preventable hospital admissions for at least a decade.

…

'Place' helps to shape people's health experiences through many different physical, social, economic and psychological exposures.

The World Health Organization recognises the social determinants of health are intimately linked to place and are major causes of unjust and avoidable health differences, which I reported in the strategy Creating Opportunities: Postcodes of Hope.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Medical Research, I appreciated the value of Gen V the first time I heard the Murdoch institute's big idea and have advocated for it, so I am delighted the Minister for Health has backed it and that the Paul Ramsay Foundation has contributed almost $25 million over five years. The Andrews government has invested $2 million in the start-up, adding to the government's $33.3 million investment in genomic sequencing, which is helping thousands of Victorians with rare diseases or cancers to get the diagnosis and treatment they need, faster. Gen V research will be embedded in medical and education systems. This is groundbreaking. It will change people's lives and it will save lives, and it will be an outstanding collaboration for generations to come.