Page 2307 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 1 November 1989
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NATIONAL BETTER HEALTH PROGRAM
Ministerial Statement and Paper
Mr Kaine: This'll be a ripper.
MR BERRY (Minister for Community Services and Health), by leave: Well, I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition is waiting with - - -
Mrs Grassby: With bated breath.
MR BERRY: Waiting with bated breath and I - - -
Mr Humphries: He needs better health.
MR BERRY: They are indeed about health issues. It is very interesting to hear the cynical remarks of the spokesman for health from the Liberal Party about the delivery of better health in the ACT.
Mr Speaker, I would like to announce the involvement of this Government in a most exciting program - and I can assure the Leader of the Opposition that it is so exciting that he will even get enthusiastic about it if he pays close attention to what I have to say - to promote the health of all Australians, including those in the ACT and including the Leader of the Opposition. This program is called the national better health program, and I would like to give you some background to its development.
In 1981, the World Health Organisation produced a report on the formulation of global strategies to achieve health for all by the year 2000. These were later adopted by the thirty-fourth World Health Assembly. The World Health Organisation health for all program is concerned not only with health improvement but also with themes and principles considered vital to the aim of attaining better health across all population groups. The key themes are: equity, health promotion, development of primary health care to enhance preventive activity, and increased consumer participation.
A further development occurred in 1986 at the international conference on health promotion where the five principles of the Ottawa charter for health promotion were announced: building healthy public policy, creating supportive environments, strengthening community action, developing personal skills, and reorienting health services towards health promotion.
These form the basis for what has become known as the "new public health". Now both these initiatives - the World Health Organisation health for all and the new public health - have been influential in the development of an Australian initiative, the health for all Australians report, announced by the Federal Minister for Community Services and Health, my Labor Party colleague, Dr Neal Blewett. He announced that in April 1985.
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