Can I thank Uncle Billy for his really warm Welcome to Country, and say in response to a question that he posed to all of us, I can tell him I’m deeply proud of the fact that we are part of a country that hosts the oldest, continuously surviving culture on the face of the planet. It is something we should cherish and something we should be proud of.
I want to pay my respects to Elders, past, present, and emerging of the lands of the Turrbal and Jagera people here in the Meanjin nation. As Health Minister, in particular, it is so important that we acknowledge Country, and we reaffirm our commitment to close the yawning and shameful gap in health outcomes and life expectancy between the indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and I do that again today. Like Carlo I’m not going to go through all of it dignitaries, except to say to the Minister from Burundi you are so welcome. Thank you for blessing us with your presence, not just today, but over the last several days. We deeply value visits from as far away as Africa, so thank you for joining us.
When I was doing a little bit of searching online about the history of FECCA Congresses, it’s been some time since I attended one. See whether there was some interesting gossip that I could repeat to you from them. I noticed that about 36 years ago, Bob Hawke opened the FECCA Congress in Canberra when he was Prime Minister during the bicentenary year. And also, many of us remember, during the year that featured a really searing debate in the community, but particularly in the Parliament around immigration, and particularly around Asian immigration. And Bob, I think, made a particular point of making sure that there was time in his diary to come to the FECCA Congress that year. I wrote down this quote from his speech. After he recounted the fact that at that time, four in 10 Australians were either born overseas or had a parent born overseas – as we know it’s now more than five in 10 – Bob said: “Let us proclaim from this Congress the demographic fact that we are a multicultural nation. But let us proclaim too that we are multicultural, not only in character, but in outlook. Multicultural not only by fact of democracy, but by virtue of philosophical choice.”
Three and a half decades on, again we are facing an environment that is really testing our social cohesion. The environment heavily impacted by conflicts overseas that directly impact so many communities here in Australia. It is again, as it was in 1988, so important to reaffirm that we are multicultural, not by chance or by demographic circumstance. We are multicultural, as Carlo said, by very clear choice. Multiculturalism that we have to cherish and nurture and be proud of, as the most successful multicultural nation on the planet. FECCA’s voice and FECCA’s role in nurturing that through the tougher times, more than any, is absolutely critical. It is the leading voice over 45 years, as Janice said, the leading voice of multicultural and culturalism in this country.
Not only is FECCA a critical voice, it’s also a critical partner for government. More than 10 years ago, just echoing what Elijah just said, more than 10 years ago, I had the privilege as the Minister for Ageing, working with FECCA to develop what was then, for the first time in a long, long time, a clear Strategy around Ageing and Aged Care for People from CALD Backgrounds, as we called that strategy. Working very closely with a Chair who I can safely say was quite obsessed by this area of aged care and aging, Pino Migliorino. He played just an extraordinary role, along with another future Chair of your organisation, Mary Patetsos and many others, in working really closely, having deep consultation sessions around the country to craft a strategy that is absolutely covered with FECCA’s fingerprints. It is a Strategy, as I come back to the portfolio more than a decade later, that is really paying off, that is helping build capability in communities to develop their own aged care services. Recognising that these issues come in waves, as new waves of migrants age, and want to build their own aged care services at home and in aged care facilities that we need an aged care system that is dynamic. I think the work that we did together back then is really reaping rewards for many communities, like the communities that Elijah talked about. But I want to see that partnership extend far beyond aged care and ageing. I want to see it extend in my portfolio of health right through the healthcare system. I have to say, and I’ve said this to FECCA from the time we were elected to Government a couple of years ago, I want to see FECCA brought right back to the centre of that. I want to see FECCA recognised as the leading voice of multicultural Australia. An organisation that over 45 years has a proven record of partnering with government in a really mature, constructive way, that delivers huge results for ethnic communities in Australia.
That is why, very early on in our time in government, we found $2.5 million dollars to provide some seed funding to FECCA to develop the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative. Tapping into all of the organisations, the almost countless organisations right through Australia who are working with local groups to deliver better health outcomes. We saw some of that through the CALD Health Advisory Group through the pandemic. As tough as that period was, and as inequitable as the health outcomes, in many cases, were in this country, they would have been so much worse, but for the work of that Health Advisory Group. Talking to local communities about vaccines, talking to local communities about safe practices and the importance of a whole range of regulations that were in place. And it really was an approach that recognised the important role of groups, again, like FECCA, as trusted intermediaries at a really volatile, sensitive time for the community, of trusted intermediaries for governments to communicate through. It was an innovation that did deliver results through COVID, but one that we also wanted to explore in other healthcare settings.
We tapped into it again to develop a program to improve the uptake of cancer screening in multicultural communities. We have some of the best cancer screening programs on the planet here in Australia, but they are not utilised equitably across the community. We tasked Monash University in particular, to work with FECCA and some other organisations to co-design a program to improve the take up of bowel, breast and cervical cancer screening in multicultural communities. As we know, as you know, much more than me, too often when governments try to speak to multicultural communities, including about health policy, too often, we make a pamphlet, we translate it, and we give it to you to take out to your local communities. We tried something very different in this case. This program very much from the start, involved people from multicultural Australia to discuss and decide on the health priority that was most important to focus on in this area. It’s really a great example, I think, of government letting projects be managed from the get go as close to the ground, as is possible. FECCA and other organisations worked remarkably well to design that program to deliver small grants to local organisations that would deliver targeted campaigns to increase participation in those free screening programs. Already we are seeing results from that that genuinely will save lives, as we did, frankly, during the COVID pandemic.
Your voice, your work, is not just important in discrete areas and discrete projects like cancer screening or other areas that I’m sure where we’re working together on I want it involved as broadly as possible in our program to strengthen Medicare. Because as I get around to local communities, I’m not sure there are any groups in our community who cherish Medicare more than people who have just arrived in this country, for whom that little green card is just a remarkable thing. I’ve talked to so many different people who have arrived recently, who sometimes travelled through a whole range of countries, where the idea of being able to go to a hospital or a doctor for free and receive world-quality care is a dream. It genuinely is a dream.
I was proud as an Australian, certainly as Health Minister, to read the most recent report of the Commonwealth Fund that ranks healthcare systems around the world, and see that, again, the Australian healthcare system ranked as number one overall, for the first time. But again, ranked number one in health equity. Now I see that’s one of your five programs out of the course of this conference. Number one for health equity and at the core of that, underpinning that equity, is Medicare. And although it’s a terrific program it is one under real pressure: bulk billing has been in free fall, a million Australians can’t afford the medicines that their doctors prescribe as important for their health. And so the work we are doing to revive bulk billing, to build Urgent Care Clinics through communities and to make medicines cheaper is making a difference. But it’s still really tough to access a doctor, to find bulk billing, to afford medicines. We know there’s much, much more for us to do. But we also know that groups like yours are important partners: you tap into local communities, you’re able to tell me and my colleagues what’s really important, what the priority actions of a government like ours should be.
Thank you for your partnership over 45 years. Thank you for your work over 45 years, particularly during the tough years. And this is a tough year. And next year, it will be a tough year. That’s really when the mettle of an organisation, the resilience, the strength of an organisation like this gets tested. And time and time again over those 45 years, when those tests are presented, this organisation has always come through. All the best for your Congress and thank you very much.
