MOTIONS
Mr LEESER (Berowra) (10:30): I support the motion. Cardiovascular disease remains one of Australia's biggest healthcare challenges. Around 1.3 million Australians aged 18 and over are living with heart, stroke or vascular disease, and this motion rightly draws particular attention to women's heart health, with more than half a million Australian women living with a heart, stroke and vascular conditions.
Women can experience different symptoms and risk factors for cardiovascular disease, and for too long women's heart health has been under-recognised, underdiagnosed and under-researched. Improving awareness among patients and clinicians can help ensure that symptoms are recognised earlier and that women receive timely, appropriate care consistently. In 2023 around 19,800 Australian women experienced an acute coronary event and around 19,000 suffered a stroke.
Behind every one of these numbers is a person and a family whose life may be changed in an instant. That's why prevention, early detection and treatment matter. Regular check-ups can identify risks before they become life-threatening emergencies.
Early action gives patients the best chance of healthier outcomes. The coalition has a strong record in this area. In government we established a 10-year $220 million mission for cardiovascular health through the Medical Research Future Fund and established the dedicated Medicare Heart Health Check.
We also supported Her Heart to establish the Heart Health Hub, aimed at improving education, early detection and treatment of cardiovascular disease risk in women. In total, the former coalition government invested more than $662 million in cardiovascular disease research and provided more than $7.7 billion to prescribed cardiovascular medicines through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
We welcome work by the government which builds on those initiatives. Heart disease should not be a partisan issue. Where we can improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment, members across this parliament should be prepared to work together.
That principle is particularly important to me in another area of cardiovascular health. In March this year I was proud to join with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health organisations, community leaders, researchers and parliamentary colleagues to launch Parliamentary Friends for Ending Rheumatic Heart Disease here at Parliament House. I'm privileged to co-chair that group with the member for Leichhardt and the member for Wentworth.
We launched the group in partnership with the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, the RHD Alliance and the Snow Foundation. It's deliberately bipartisan, because rheumatic heart disease is another issue where politics should stop and practical action should begin. Rheumatic heart disease is preventable.
It's been virtually eliminated from most non-Indigenous Australian communities, yet it continues to cause serious illness, disability and premature death among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. In 2024 First Nations Australians accounted for 93 per cent of acute rheumatic fever diagnoses and 78 per cent of people living with rheumatic heart disease on all jurisdictional registers.
More than half of those living with RHD were under 35. Almost two-thirds were women, and more than 80 per cent lived in remote or very remote communities. Those figures should concern every member of the parliament.
A strep A infection can lead to acute rheumatic fever, and repeated episodes can permanently damage the heart valves. We know the importance of early diagnosis, treatment and ongoing preventive care. I was delighted a couple of years ago to meet Professor Andrew Steer of Melbourne University, who's working on a vaccine to prevent strep A.
Australia should support the great research that's going on in this area. The challenge is ensuring that what works is available consistently in the communities that are carrying the greatest burden of disease. At the launch of Parliamentary Friends we heard directly from Aboriginal leaders and clinical experts and saw a special preview of Take Heart: Songlines.
The message was clear: We need strong primary health care. We need to back ACCHOs, who know their communities and provide culturally safe care. We need to access essential medicines and specialist services.
And we must address the underlying conditions that allow preventable disease to flourish. RHD cannot be separated from housing overcrowding and housing infrastructure. Nor can it be separated from where the families can access primary health care when a child first develops a sore throat or a skin infection.
This is why the role of the ACCHOs is so important. For a disease like RHD, that continuity matters enormously. It's one thing to diagnose a child or a young person; it's another to ensure that they receive the treatment, follow-up and support needed to prevent further damage to their heart.
That requires trust, consistency and services that are present in communities for the long term. Australia is committed to ending RHD as a public health problem by 2030. That's an ambitious objective, but it is an objective worth pursuing.
The Parliamentary Friends groups give members across the political spectrum an opportunity to keep the issue before decision-makers, to listen to communities and to maintain a focus on what works. On World Heart Day, the message to Australians is simple: know the warning signs, understand your risk, don't ignore changes, talk to a GP, and recognise that heart disease can present differently in women.
I want to acknowledge all the fantastic clinicians, researchers, Aboriginal community controlled health organisations, health workers and advocates who are working to improve cardiovascular health across Australia, and I commend the motion to the House.