First of all, I just want to dispel any question about why the chair and I wanted to have this committee investigation. It's not to expedite treatments for male pattern baldness, okay?

I wish to echo the words of the chair. I often talk about bipartisanship in this place, and this committee was really an exemplar of how bipartisanship can deliver wonderful outcomes. I commend the member for North Sydney for his chairmanship and for the report. We worked all together, and I'm very grateful for his support and encouragement during the entire inquiry process. I'd also like to thank the other members of the committee—the member for Makin, who's here with me today; the supplementary members, the member for Dobell and the member for Higgins; and the member for Oxley—all of whom made terrific contributions, as did our other members, the member for Reid and the member for Moncrieff. I thank them all for their efforts and, in particular, as I said, I want to thank the chair for his exemplary report.

I really would like to add a few comments of a personal nature on the report. I know it's not going to please everyone, but I think that the efforts that the committee members put in, and the secretariat of Rebecca Gordon, Kate Portus, Tamara Palmer, Peter Richardson and Rei-Gaylene Oroki, were absolutely wonderful. The report would not be as good as it is—and I think it is really good—without the efforts of everyone, particularly the secretariat, and they really do deserve recognition for their work. It has made me realise how much we rely on the Public Service and public servants to make sure our democracy works.

We'll have much to say in the coming days about this inquiry and our report, but, briefly, I think the most important thing that's come out of our report is the importance of patient centred care and the importance of a cooperative and collaborative approach to health care in the 21st century. I started my training as a doctor almost 50 years ago now, and we've made tremendous progress since then. But in the last 10 years it's become apparent that our science has progressed to the point where our individualised care for a whole range of illnesses, ranging from cancers through to neuromuscular disorders, is based on genetics and genomics and we will have individualised treatment for most of the disorders that we see in health care in the future. Our system, which was designed 20, 30 or 40 years ago, needs to be updated so that we can cope with this tsunami of genetic and genomic treatments.

In particular, I hope to see the end of oncology in terms of chemotherapy. We will have genetically targeted treatments for most cancers in the future, so that we'll be able to do away with the side effects of chemotherapy and people will get individualised biologic treatments that will cure their cancers.

In my own field of paediatrics, we are now seeing the arrival of genomic treatments for a whole range of neuromuscular disorders. People have mentioned in this House before, spinal muscular atrophy, for which there are now one-off genetic treatments available which appear to be curative. We are looking at evolving genetic treatments for fatal disorders, such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I met a family from the member for Lalor's seat who had three boys affected with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and unfortunately one of them passed away. This is a disorder that, in my paediatric life, I hope to see a cure be available for. That would be a wonderful, wonderful thing.

We are now at a real tipping point in medicine. This has been a wonderful report. The individual recommendations, of which there are over 30, are very, very important. But the importance now lays in us being able to make sure that whoever is in government takes these recommendations on board, develops them, funds them and has them as a basis of our modern health care in Australia. I certainly hope that I will be in the Labor government that does this. I look forward to that.

I would like to thank the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Save Our Sons Duchenne Foundation, the spinal muscular atrophy groups, the metabolic disorder groups, the mitochondrial disorder groups and all the patient groups who presented to the committee and gave us their time without fail. I found it incredibly humbling to hear those stories, and I know that every other member of the committee felt the same. We felt absolutely privileged that people had let us into their lives. I know the members for Higgins, North Sydney and Makin felt that too: that we were given the privilege of getting the insights that they had into their own disorders. Part of our report will be trying to get those voices to our healthcare providers very early on in the approval process for new treatments—and that's what we want. All of us want that. This report did not have any political bias at all, and I'm very proud of that, as I know the chair and the other members are.

I would like to also thank the industry groups: the MTAA, Medicines Australia and all the industry groups that presented to us. They did it in a feeling of camaraderie and of goodwill, with the best outcomes for Australian patients at the forefront. I also feel really thankful to John Skerritt, the TGA, PBAC and MSAC for the time and the supports that they gave us in providing information to us. It made me very proud of our Australian healthcare public servants and the service they give to this country. I think that became apparent across the course of our inquiry. There's no doubt that they will be well supported by whoever is in government, if the chair and I have anything to do with it in the future.

The report provides a very clear path forward. I'm grateful for all the support that we were given by the parliament and by our parliamentary staff but, in particular, by every member that sat on the committee, no matter what their politics are. It's my hope that future governments will develop their health policies in line with our report. I commend the report to the House, and I thank you for the indulgence of being able to speak on the reburkeport today.