Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Kingston for his question. The GP bulk-billing rate in his electorate has gone up by 15 percentage points since 2003. I do not know about my being a good Health minister, but that is a good result for the people of Kingston, thanks to the policies of the Howard government.

The Howard government does not just talk about Medicare. We take the practical steps needed to make a good system even better. For instance, last year through Medicare the government spent some $200 million on preventive health and treating chronic disease, with 650,000 GP team care plans; 250,000 team care plans; 500,000 allied health consultations; and some 250,000 senior health checks. There is more good news on mental health, thanks to the Howard government, in particular through the good work of the Assistant Minister for Health and Ageing, the member for Sturt.

In the first three months of its operation, under the government’s new mental health initiative there were some 93,000 patients benefiting from GP mental health plans. There were almost 80,000 psychologist consultations funded through Medicare. That is an additional $25 million to direct patient mental health services, thanks to the Howard government. It is measures like this which mean that the Howard government is undeniably the best friend that Medicare has ever had.

I was asked about alternative policies. On page 10 of a speech rather pretentiously titled The forgotten solution: primary care as the frontline of prevention, the shadow minister for health said:

I haven’t come here today to unveil all of Labor’s proposals.

In fact, she unveiled none of Labor’s proposals. Labor’s only health policy is to have a single funder or not to have a single funder—to have a single funder, if you believe the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, and not to have a single funder, if you believe the shadow minister for health. And I suppose around all of this is the Leader of the Opposition, like some latter-day Hamlet, stroking his chin and saying, ‘To be or not to be; that is the question’—like he is in favour of the US alliance but not in Iraq; like he wants to cut greenhouse gases but not until 2050; and like he wants to be a Christian socialist but not a socialist.

In the absence of any serious health policy, we have to go back to the Leader of the Opposition’s record on health as the de facto Premier of Queensland. What did he do? He closed operating theatres in Brisbane, he cut 2,200 public hospital beds throughout the great state of Queensland and he allowed dental health waiting lists to blow out to three years. Members opposite do not like hearing about Dr Death, but the Courier-Mail of 2 September—

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