STATEMENTS ON SIGNIFICANT MATTERS

Ms WHITE (Lyons—Assistant Minister for Women, Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care and Assistant Minister for Indigenous Health) (09:01): This week is Women's Health Week, a week that puts women's health where it belongs—front and centre. It's a week to encourage women to prioritise their own health and wellbeing with a simple but powerful theme of Do it Anyway.

It is a reminder for women to put their own health a little higher on what can be a very long list. I know just how easy it is for our own health to slip down that list. The women in our lives are very good at putting everyone else first, juggling work, caring for family and children and making sure everyone around them is happy and healthy.

Women's Health Week is a prompt we should all take to change up that order—make that doctor's appointment, get the blood test that you've been delaying, go for a run or start that thing that you've been wanting to try but keep putting off. This year's Women's Health Week also marks a significant milestone for our government's women's health package. This week, we celebrate the incredible news that one million women have benefited from cheaper medicines, including contraceptives, menopause and endometriosis medicines, saving women more than $150 million.

This is no accident. It reflects our government's commitment to making women's health a national priority. It reflects the fact that half of our cabinet is made up of women and representation matters.

But Women's Health Week is also an opportunity to be honest about why that investment was needed in the first place—because for too long women have been made to feel like their voices and views can be easily overlooked, dismissed and not listened to when it comes to their health. Sex and gender bias in the health system is real. Women experience delayed diagnosis and inadequate investigation of symptoms that lead to delays in treatment, sometimes with dire consequences.

Many women tell me that they've had to keep going back and forth, repeating their story, just to be taken seriously. So it's no wonder we see women accessing the healthcare system more than men do. Women spend more in out-of-pocket costs and yet are less likely to receive the appropriate care management and support that they need.

The Albanese Labor government listened to women and we acted. The nearly $800 million women's health package is about making health care more affordable, giving women more choice and improving access to the care they need at all stages of life. For the first time in more than 30 years, new oral contraceptives have been listed on the PBS, and menopause treatments have had the first new listings in 20 years.

We've increased Medicare rebates for IUD and contraceptive implant insertion and removal. We are establishing eight LARC centres of excellence across Australia, improving access to long-acting reversible contraception while training more health professionals to provide that care. We now have 33 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics open and operating across Australia, providing women with access to care close to home.

And, since 1 July, all 33 clinics have expanded their scope to provide support and care for perimenopause and menopause. And more than 137,000 women have undergone a menopause health assessment since being covered by Medicare. Our government has been clear that improving women's health care starts with listening to women; their experiences must be at the heart of how we improve health care.

For too long, women have been expected to fit themselves into a health system that wasn't always designed with them in mind. Hobart mum Mel Knuckey knows that experience all too well. I had the privilege of hearing Mel's story and her experience of perimenopause at the Menopause Summit in Tasmania recently.

Her symptoms began with severe insomnia, but no-one she saw thought to speak with her about perimenopause, and instead she was diagnosed with chronic depression and given anti-depressants and sleeping tablets. Mel spiralled; within just a few months she went from being a loving mother and wife with a successful career to a patient in a psychiatric ward after she tried to take her own life.

Mel said: For so long, I blamed myself. I believed I was broken. That I was incapable of coping.

That somehow, I had failed my family and everyone around me. Why did I have to go through such severe treatment and pain to get the answer? It is a question that no woman should have to ask.

Unfortunately, experiences like Mel's are why we are working so hard to help to bring perimenopause and menopause out of the shadows. This year, we launched Australia's first national perimenopause and menopause awareness campaign, because menopause shouldn't be a secret society where women have to reach perimenopause before they start learning what it is, what the symptoms can look like and where they can turn for support.

We all know the stereotypes, the jokes about hot flushes, the idea that perimenopause and menopause is something that happens to grey-haired women later in life. But in reality, the stigma attached to something that is completely natural has meant that we have failed to acknowledge what is happening around all of us in our families, among our friends, in our workplaces and even in our own lives.

Women experiencing perimenopause and menopause are raising families, building careers, caring for ageing parents, running businesses and showing up every day for the people around them. This campaign is designed to help women recognise themselves in other women's experiences and remind them that they are not alone. The more we normalise these conversations around the kitchen table, in workplaces, with our girlfriends over a coffee and in conversations with health professionals, the easier it becomes for women to recognise symptoms and seek support.

And when they go to their doctor, they can ask for a menopause and perimenopause health assessment, just like 137,000 other Australian women have. Women's health is something that I care very deeply about, and one of the great privileges that I have is chairing the new Ministerial Expert Panel on Women's Health. This year we are looking at cardiovascular health.

Heart disease and stroke, which have not traditionally been seen as women's health issues, are leading causes of death for Australian women. But we know that gender bias extends beyond reproductive health issues and impacts on other areas such as cardiovascular health, with it being under-recognised, which results in delays that can impact on health outcomes.

I want to share some stats with you: more than half a million women are estimated to be living with at least one condition affecting the heart and blood vessels, with many of them completely unaware. around 20,000 women in Australia lose their lives to coronary heart disease each year; that is one in every four deaths. and for First Nations women the numbers are even more alarming, higher prevalence, hospitalisation and death, with acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease disproportionately impacting First Nations women.

Through the work of the expert panel, I have heard confronting stories from women who knew something wasn't right but struggled to have their concerns taken seriously. Women presenting to emergency departments with symptoms of a heart attack have been told it was stress, anxiety or exhaustion and given a Panadol only to later discover they were experiencing a serious cardiac event.

When I launched the expert panel, I met Debra, whose story highlights exactly why this work is so important. For more than a year, Debra felt unwell. She repeatedly sought help from her GP and presented to the hospital, but her symptoms were attributed to anxiety.

Despite being reassured that nothing was wrong, Debra trusted her instincts and continued to advocate for herself. Eventually she secured a referral to a specialist. Testing revealed a completely blocked artery.

Just days later, Debra suffered a heart attack and underwent emergency surgery to have two stents inserted. Debra's story raises an important question: how many women are being forced to fight for answers when they should be receiving care? At our women's health event breakfast on Monday, we heard from Tahnee, who told us about her harrowing ordeal following the birth of her child that saw her screaming in pain for 11 days.

Tahnee suffered a number of ministrokes before anyone took her pain seriously. She said: It shouldn't take a woman being critically ill or dead for her to get the investigations she needs. Women should not have to repeatedly justify their symptoms or convince health professionals that something is wrong.

They deserve to be heard the first time. That is why the expert panel is examining where the health system can do better, from prevention and early detection through to diagnosis, treatment and ongoing care. As a government, we are committed to addressing sex and gender bias in health care and ensuring that women and girls can access the care, support and information they need, when they need it and where they need it—because, whether we are talking about cardiovascular disease, endometriosis, menopause or contraception, the principle is the same: better health outcomes begin by listening to women..

I want to acknowledge the clinicians, the researchers, the advocates and organisations working to improve women's health across Australia, and, most importantly, the women who continue to share their experiences. Their voices are driving change and helping build a health system that better serves all Australians. There is much to celebrate this Women's Health Week, but it is also a reminder that there is more work to do.

As we continue to deliver practical reforms for women, we must keep listening, keep learning and keep building a health system where every woman is heard, respected and supported to live a healthy life.