Hansard debates

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (12:00): The critical point about this is that this bill will deliver better patient care and better career options for nurses and midwives. This is incredibly important on a range of different levels from what happens to you in hospital to what happens to medical research. What we have been able to do is engage nurses more in that proposition as well, as we build a better career path for them. It is becoming increasingly part of the government strategy to have this engagement, because medical research is not just about trying to get vaccines for the coronavirus and working on that side of it; there are also a lot of different practical things that happen every day. That is the innovation that we look for. I do want to emphasise the point that nurses play a critical role in how that occurs.

Just on specifics with this bill, if you look at how ratios are important, the presence of adequate numbers of nursing staff reduces the risk of patients developing pressure ulcers, pneumonia, deep vein thrombosis, ulcers, upper gastrointestinal bleeds, sepsis and cardiac arrest. Adequate nurse staffing ratios also reduce patient length of stay and improve recovery. We recognise the commitment of hardworking nurses and midwives to support everyone, particularly in times of need, and that is why this matters.

I was reflecting on the contribution that the Attorney-General, the former Minister for Health, made in trying to get nurse-patient ratios in and the hard work that has been done over a long period of time. It is not that long ago that it was the Royal Australian Nursing Federation—it was a union with the first word being ‘royal’—and what happened was that the sense of duty of care that this profession had, dominated obviously by women, almost worked against them in getting a better reward for the effort and the quality of the service that they provided. I remember they had basically a no-strike rule. This was right until the 1980s. So this is part of a long history of trying to redress this imbalance, to recognise the significance of nurses and midwives, and particularly—as anybody who has been in hospital knows; it is self-evident when you are there—to make sure they actually do get the reward for their effort and for their value and for their input in so many different ways. That is why I am including the medical research proposition, because that is what we are looking at.

I know the member for Ballarat, who spoke before me here, was looking at in the future what we can do in regional areas as well. If you think about medical research, there was $116.5 million invested in the last budget. One of the key projects is Generation Victoria, or GenV, with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. That is looking at how we actually examine the health determinants of life and a much bigger analysis of what happens from the time you are born; what are your predispositions for a whole range of different illnesses or asthma or obesity—all these different things. This is world-leading research, and this will be of great benefit.

Then you see how we put that into practice; that becomes the next proposition. I have spoken at conferences with Research Australia and said that Australia is world leading in medical research, and thankfully the epicentre is right here. The beating heart of our medical research is right here in Victoria, and I am glad to hear the federal health minister, Greg Hunt, is looking at that as well. We are clearly on a unity ticket; we want to make this a legacy of the coronavirus.

I am arguing strongly to get a centre for disease control and prevention based here in Melbourne, and that can join up the critical institutions that we have. I was with the Premier and the Minister for Health when we gave extra funding for examining a vaccine for the coronavirus to the Doherty Institute. Peter Doherty won a Nobel prize. Around him you have Professor Sharon Lewin as the director, one of our most brilliant minds and researchers. Then you have the Royal Melbourne Hospital, you have the University of Melbourne and you have the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in that fantastic brains trust community right there in the heart of Melbourne. And then you reach across to where we launched the first trials in the Southern Hemisphere looking at a vaccine for the coronavirus, and that was with the Alfred hospital and the Burnet Institute, so that is the Commercial Road hub there. That is fantastic. And then you go even further and you see the great southern hub, so that is Monash University with CSIRO right next door, and all the work they are doing. Then CSIRO obviously connects up to the centre in Geelong that is actually the only one in the Southern Hemisphere that examines what is happening in viruses from animals. That is the way the coronavirus has progressed—from animals to humans.

What we are trying to do is work with the Australian government to look at where we can land this as one of the legacies of this pandemic, to have this centre for disease control and prevention. I have also discussed with the University of Queensland, who are doing some outstanding work, how they can be a partner. They think it is an outstanding idea—that is what they have said—so there is real merit in how we can bring this together. I think it is now a time where confronting death clarifies, people have put ideology aside and we are actually looking at the unity tickets that we need to get done. I think this would be a wonderful proposition as the outcome of this catastrophic set of circumstances where we have had the worst pandemic in more than a century.

If you look at what is the next connector, you need the industries. So we have got CSL, one of our leading companies on the Australian stock exchange, and I am delighted that it is one of the powerhouses in our manufacturing engine room. In particular where that is located is very close to my heart in the state district of Broadmeadows, and it underscores that proposition that I have been arguing—that we need to look at how we bring back these manufacturing heartlands. That is for our national sovereignty, our security of supply chain, so it is in the national interest.

This is how these different issues connect. I want to just talk at that level on the bill. One of the other issues that also is of relevance is what are we going to do to fast-track clinical trials? I think this is of significance because the global market is worth about $106 billion, of which Australia attracts just $1.1 billion. Australia is well positioned to increase its international market share in clinical trials. What we are looking to do in the proposal—this is a proposal I am supporting—is that we look at how Australia can remove red tape that reduces its attractiveness as a destination. I am advocating that we streamline regulation to unlock this economic opportunity while ensuring the intellectual rigour is still there so that the trials are conducted with efficacy and the results then stand the test of time and deliver in the public interest.

I just thought it was worth connecting those issues together so that you actually can see why nurses and midwives matter from the time you go into the hospital for your treatment, to make sure that you get a faster recovery, that you actually are taken care of and that you can regain your health, get back to work and lead the productive life that you want. Then also, to underscore what I believe is the next phase that we are engaging in now, how do we harness the resources that we have and the insight that nurses have in a very practical, day-to-day way to increase innovation, to come up with new discoveries and to remember that that is really also a critical part. Yes, we have the blockbuster vaccines that we are all looking for to solve things, but in a really practical way in a day-to-day matter this is a significant role that nurses and midwives play, so I want to recommend the bill to the house for all of those who have taken part over a long of time, decades now, to deliver a better result for patients and for nurses.