Many people have asked for my views on electronic health records and the Government’s new My Health electronic health record.

I am strongly of the view that the future in health and health improvements is in data and so the electronic health record is vitally important to this.

I will not be opting out because I do feel it is very important. However, I do believe the Government has handled this very badly, and it would have been better to develop an opt-in program and develop security programs beforehand and to better explain the importance before the roll-out.

I also believe that better security programs should have been devised, and in particular it should be made a priority that no one else other than a health professional should have access to someone’s personal health record and it should only be used for health benefits.

It is simply not good enough for the Minister to say “trust me”.

The Government has previously surreptitiously sold off the Australian Cancer registry, without any benefit to the Australian community, and I have fears with what they may do to our electronic health records.

Like most health policies, the Liberal-National parties have no understanding of the importance of getting things right for the benefit of all Australians.