Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

We have now had the member for O’Connor indicate that he is not a man of influence. I believe that he is a man of very great influence within the Liberal Party, having made and broken leaders in the past. Obviously he is a man who knows what the Howard government’s secret agenda is—that is, the abolition of Medicare and ensuring that people can only be assisted by our health system if they have private insurance.

Mr Deputy Speaker, you would be well aware that that is an American style health system, where you must be privately insured in order to get care. There are some very residual low-level assistance programs to people who are poor or old, but there are 45 million Americans, mainly low-income working Americans, who neither qualify for the assistance programs nor can afford the private health insurance, and they simply go without care. That is obviously where the Howard government wants to take this nation. We have had it revealed by the member for O’Connor today, and here we are in this House with that before us. I think every Australian would want to know that John Howard clearly has not given up his long-stated ambition to abolish Medicare, and we have had that confirmed by no less than the member for O’Connor today.

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