LEON DELANEY, HOST:My pleasure now to welcome to the program the Shadow Minister of Health Chris Bowen. Good afternoon.

CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH:Good afternoon to you.

DELANEY:Now you've called for the Federal Government to consider the ongoing bush fire smoke contamination, a public health emergency. I think it is that quite clearly isn't it?

BOWEN:It is, but in fairness, Leon it's about more than the smoke. The smoke is very important. And Canberra has copped a lot of the brunt of that, of course, and in a very serious way. But it's not just about the smoke is the point that Anthony Albanese and I have made. There are all sorts of health implications, which will go on for a long time. I mean, we're talking about mental health as well. Obviously the direct impact on the first responders, our emergency workers and on those who lost their homes, but also those who were in fear of losing their homes. Or those worried about the communities.

I spent some time in areas affected on the South Coast when it was at its worst. You know, the sense of concern in the community was very strong. And particularly, it's easy to forget young people and young children. They are worrying, you know, in their little lives, this is a big, a big event. Whether they're going to have a home. And they think the worst, and there's all sorts of evidence of the mental health implications for young people. But everyone, the Black Saturday, as we know, from experience a quarter of survivors of the Black Saturday fires reported mental ill health four years after the event, and basically double the national average.

So, of course, there's the direct smoke implications, and I'm more than happy to talk about that. But the point I'm making is that it's a broader health emergency, which needs a big investment and a big focus from the Government going forward.

DELANEY:I believe the public sorry, the mental health package that the Government has announced is about $76 million. It's a substantial package isn't it?

BOWEN:Yes. And it took up a lot number of the things that we had suggested, which we're very pleased about, we congratulate the Government for. So, what they've done is, if you, if you go to your GP in the normal course of events and get a referral to a psychologist, you can get 10 visits under a mental health plan under Medicare. We said in bushfire areas that cap should be removed. What the Government's done is taken the cap from 10 to 20. That's fair enough. Thats a good move. We're glad that they took up that suggestion.

And the other thing we've suggested and they took up partially is tele-health. So a lot of places affected by the bushfires don't have GPs, you know, think about an area a lot of your listeners would know well, the South Coast of New South Wales, all those all those hamlets and towns, you know between Bateman's Bay and Ulladulla and further south. They don't necessarily have GPs, you got have got to go to a big, big centre.

If you got a lot on in your life, you're not necessarily going to do that. Now doctors don't get remunerated for tele-health as a matter of course, you know, video conference or telephone conference with a patient. We think that should be changed in bushfire areas as it has been changed for drought.The Government changed it for mental health consultations.

It would be better if it was done more broadly. But again, I'm glad the Government has done it for mental health consultations and I think it would be good if they went the next step and just extend to bushfire areas more broadly. I think eventually we are going to have to go down that road for everyone really.

DELANEY:Yeah, indeed, with the smoke in particular, though, this has been of great concern for people in Canberra because we've had the smoke here for week after week after week after week. And there is growing concern that we really don't know enough about the long term health effects. Medical experts have come forward and said, Well, we really don't have much research on that. We really are in the dark. Greg hunt has said that he will commission future research into that question, but that's something that does need to be taken into account isn't it?

BOWEN:It is and it's right to say we just don't know, not fully, I mean it can't be good for us.

DELANEY: Exactly.

BOWEN:You know, you think about it, it's basically compulsory smoking. And the ramifications could be very substantial. I don't want to alarm people, you know, don't want to be overly alarmist, but, you know, it's not good. I'm glad again, the Government has adopted the idea of more research funding. You know, I'm not sure $5 million will be enough going forward. But you know, it's a good thing. Again, I'm not here to quibble.

That's a good thing we need that. I know the ANU is doing some work and I know the ACT Government is focused on it. But we do need to know more. In the short term though, I mean, I'm sure you've had other people on your show, giving this advice, but you know, it's best to stay indoors if you possibly can and not turn on the evaporative air conditioner, which really sucks in the air from outside and pumps it around inside even if it's hot. And, you know, masks really, I wouldn't put too much faith in, you know, going outside and putting the mask on.

DELANEY:They may be of some benefit, but yeah, one of those things.

BOWEN:You can't rely on it.

DELANEY:Yeah. Exactly. The difficulty of courseis that there is very little opportunity to escape even if we stay indoors, shut up all the doors and windows, the smoke still gets in. And if it hangs around for weeks on end, as it has done, there really is no opportunity to escape. So that's a very frustrating thing for people.

BOWEN:Absolutely. And, you know, particularly, you know, we're all grown-ups, we could all deal with it for a day or two, but when that goes on and on and on. And you're right. I mean, what we're talking about is minimising risk. You know, if you shut the doors and windows and stay inside you are minimising the risk, you're not eliminating it. Some smoke will still get through, and you still will be careful because you are making a sensible approach.

DELANEY:You've also spoken about the need to be better organised with making respiratory specialists and GPs available to people in smoke affected areas. And as you said, in some smaller towns that don't even have GPs, but we need to somehow coordinate the efforts of getting Primary Health Care delivered to those areas. Don't we.

BOWEN:Yeah, again, I'm not pretending this is easy or that there's a magic bullet or thatthe Government has easy answers. I am saying they should address it. The waiting times to see a respiratory specialist in a regional areas is very, very long. There's not many around. And if you think about the areas that have been most heavily impacted, there will be people who need more respiratory care going forward. So what I've asked the Federal Government to do is work with the state governments.

I'm not saying it's all the Federal Government's responsibility. But to work with the states and territories to come up with a plan. You know, I'm sure there will be respiratory specialists who would be happy to participate in various activities to improve access to bushfire affected regions going forward. But it does take some coordination. I have been concerned to see the AMA out there saying that GPs who are trying to help in the in the crisis are being stymied by bureaucratic roadblocks. That's a problem that's got to be fixed. Again, I'm not saying it's all Greg Hunt's problem, he's got to work with his state and territory colleaguesbut -

DELANEY:That is one of the complicating factors, isn't it? Whenever we talk about health, there's this divide between state and federal responsibilities, which comes along with certain overlaps, and certainly gaps. So it becomes a very frustrating process.

BOWEN:Yes, but you can deal with that in good faith. If the federal and state, territory governments work together in good faith you can deal with that. You know, I had instances, last week, Mike Kelly got in contact with me with some concerns about some things are happening in his electorate, you know, I don't mind saying I texted Brad Hazzard, the state Liberal health minister in New South Wales and asked him to look at it, he was back to me within 10 minutes and you know, he responded very quickly. I give him full credit for doing so. You know, this is not a time for political argy-bargy. We will make points of criticism where we think the Government has fallen short, there have been plenty of those. But the point I'm making is that, yes, federal and states do need to work together but this is a national crisis.

I mean it's Victoria, New South Wales, ACT, I should say, Queensland, Western Australia has been affected. The smoke has gone as far as New Zealand and elsewhere.

DELANEY:South America I read yesterday.

BOWEN:Yeah, yeah, that's right. This is a national crisis. When you have got a national crisis you need national leadership is out point of view.

DELANEY:One of the common criticisms that has been levelled at the authorities throughout this is a failure of communication and coordination. Especially early on when it it has been suggested that the Commonwealth Government should have been more proactive in getting meetings together with state authorities and with emergency response agencies and coordinating the efforts. But I suppose to some extent, in the early stages of the crisis, not everybody necessarily realised just how bad it was going to be.

BOWEN:Well, again on that I don't want to necessarily make too many political points. But it's easy to forget Leon. This has been going on for a long time. This hasn't happened at Christmas, or New Year's Eve. These fires were happening in September.
You know, we lost firefighters the week before Christmas. Two of my local community members gave their lives the week before Christmas.

So this isn't something which has crept up on people and crept up on the Government. And, you know, infamously now the former fire chiefs asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister to warn him that this will be a very dangerous period and he didn't meet with them.

Again, no Government can entirely stop bushfires. But we could have been much better prepared as a country for this particular episode. And on this occasion, we just could have been.

DELANEY:Since the last few weeks, the Government does seem to be certainly stepping up its response and every day there's a new announcement. Do you think they finally got the message?

BOWEN:Well, you know, again, they are playing catch up, really, with this process. Of course, we welcome the things they've done. That's good. But we think they should have been much better prepared. But you know, the fact of the matter is they're doing these things. Some instances are some things we have suggested in other instances they're not but you know, we welcome the fact that they've done that, but you know, just where they better.

Again, this is not, it's not like nobody warned that this crisis was coming. And we in the Labor Party, you know, earlier in the year put out a national bushfire plan. We, we talked about mobile resources and everything, increase our capacity and said what we would do in Government if we won the election.

So, you know, this isn't something which is just crept up on people and yes, we've had bushfires before. Of course we had. But they are getting worse. They're getting longer and more intense, there is no question about that. And we have been as a country under prepared for that.

DELANEY:The Government has also been reluctant to embrace the idea of a link between climate change and the severity of the bushfire crisis. Now senior members of the Government are saying yes, we acknowledge the link, but they're still reluctant to actually do much about changing their climate change policy.

BOWEN:Yeah. And the problem is Leon, I accepted that there are senior members of the Government who accept the link between climate change and natural disasters. I'm sure they believe that. The problem we've got is that there are enough members of the Government who don't believe in that, that they have effectively vetoed any effective action over the last seven years. You know, the Government's had many attempts, you know, Josh Frydenberg when he was Environment Minister, The emissions intensity scheme, the emissions intensity target, and then the national energy guarantee. I mean, there's been six or seven attempts and in every instance that has been vetoed by the Craig Kelly's of the world. I mean, it basically cost Malcolm Turnbull the Prime Ministership, all this stuff. You know, it gets vetoed by the people who don't accept the link between, don't accept that climate change is human induced. Point one, and point two, don't accept that it's got an impact on natural disasters and you know, they go around saying Australia's always had bushfires. That's about as relevant as saying, you know, there was lung cancer before cigarettes were invented or there was murder before guns were invented. Some things make situations worse and climate change makes bushfires worse. Ross Garnaut warned us in 2008. He says it'll become, it'll become longer and more intense by 2020. I mean, pretty prescient,pretty prescient.

DELANEY:And in fact, when he was when he was asked about that he said, not really prescient at all, when you understand the science.

BOWEN:Correct, correct. I mean, the science is very clear. As you know, the science is very, very strong. And there are too many people in the Government. Now, we all have different points of view and different perspectives. But there's nobody in the Labor Party who doesn't believe that climate change isn't real, caused by human activity, and making natural disasters and Leon it's not just natural disasters, it has health impacts across the board, you know, it will increase, we already have Australians, again, I want to be alarmist, we already have Australians who die in heat waves. They'll be more of them. The countries not too far to the north have problems with vector borne diseases. Which is a result of temperature.

Now as the temperature zones change, we're going to be more exposure to those things. So it's not just about natural disasters, it is health implications across the board. And what I have suggested is that the Government should declare climate change to be a national health policy priority area, which it currently isn't.

DELANEY:Now public opinion, of course, is vitally important to in politics. And the latest research does demonstrate that more Australians than before are accepting climate change science and are concerned or extremely concerned about the lack of action on climate change. If you count all of the people who are to some degree concerned it's something like 80 per cent of Australians. So this has got to be having an effect on the Government's view of its own policies. Surely, and particularly speaking of polls, Newspoll this week shows you're in front again. How do you feel about that?

BOWEN:We were in front for a long time and we lost an election so, to be fair. They say there is only one poll that counts and it's on election day. It's true let me tell you. So we don't get too caught up in that. And, you know, I think the Government has been very flat footed on all these issues, climate change and, and natural disasters and these bushfires and you know there has been plenty of commentary. What we've tried to do is provide constructive advice and constructive suggestions about what they should be doing and we're glad that they've taken some of those up.

DELANEY:Thanks very much for your time today.

BOWEN:Good to talk to you. Good on you.