Page 753 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 March 1991
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Adelaide in April 1988 said that Medicare was spending $20 billion each year on preventable disease, and $6 billion of that was due to malnutrition. These are staggering sums. The report by the World Health Organisation on total health by the year 2000 says that less than 40 per cent of the world population relies on Western medicine. WHO is encouraging health workers to recognise and appreciate the contribution that traditional medicine has made, and should continue to make.
This is particularly what I want to highlight in this debate. We can be most effective in reducing the costs of health or sickness benefits - as they are all too often called - and also increase the general health of the people of the ACT. It would not be all that difficult. There were guidelines indicated by Dr Ian Brighthope, a well-known medical authority. The guidelines would allow people to increase their general health. He talked about substantially increasing the proportion of fresh fruit and vegetables in one's diet. In other words, eat less meat, eggs and bread. The point that we should note is that we should eat as much uncooked food as we can. And if we are going to cook foods, we should steam them, not bake them and so on. I notice that Carmel Maher indicates, "What has this to do with a censure motion on the Minister?".
Ms Maher: You are overcooking your vegetables, Gary.
Mr Humphries: I cook lots of food, I am afraid; I confess.
MR STEVENSON: There we have it; the Health Minister admits that he is overcooking his food. So, that is one immediate benefit we have had from this discussion. I do not call for the Minister's resignation; I just call for a change in his cooking habits.
Ms Follett: Come on!
MR STEVENSON: The leader of the Labor Party, Rosemary Follett, talks to the Deputy Speaker and says, "Come on". I do not know what sort of exhortation that is.
Ms Follett: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will clarify my remarks. Mr Stevenson is indulging in total irrelevance, and I think he should be called back to order.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Ms Follett. You are straying a little bit from the point, Mr Stevenson.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Deputy Speaker, what the leader of the Labor Party has just said is that the expenditure of public money on the matter of health and the health of people in Canberra is totally irrelevant. I would suggest that the remark is totally irrelevant. One can stand in this Assembly - - -
Mrs Grassby: On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker: The point that Ms Follett made was that - - -
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