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

She was talking about the rising costs of visiting a GP and the rising costs of visiting specialists. I accept that the charges of GPs and other doctors have gone up, but they have gone up by no greater a rate than they went up when members opposite were in government.

But I will tell you what the government have done, which the former government never did—and which members opposite do not actually support, even though it helps people who face higher costs—and that is introduce the Medicare safety net. No-one likes to see people paying high costs, particularly for their health care. No-one likes that. And we have done something about it. We have put a safety net in place which, in the calendar year just gone, should have helped about 1½ million Australians. That is a safety net that members opposite are still pledged to take away.

Now that the shadow minister has been in the job for three months and has presumably had a chance to get her head around some of these things, I would like to know: is that still Labor’s position? Certainly it was their position before the last election. Certainly it was always the position of the former shadow minister, now the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, that they would abolish the Medicare safety net. Is it still the position now that the member for Gellibrand is the shadow minister? If it is still her position, what a hide to come into this House and start talking about spiralling health costs, when probably the most important structural change to Medicare since 1984 was put in by this government to help people who face those spiralling health costs, and now Labor want to rip it away.

On dental care: I am not at all happy about the fact that there are some 650,000 Australians currently on public dental waiting lists. I do not like it one little bit. And, yes, I suppose that, if the Keating government scheme which lasted for three or four years were put back in place, some slight dent might be made in those waiting lists. But you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, they did not disappear, and, in many states, as soon as the Keating government put a bit of money into those things which had always been states’ responsibilities, the states took the money back. It comes a bit rich from members opposite to talk constantly about the horrors of the Howard government dental policy, when the Leader of the Opposition—as de facto Premier of Queensland—still had three-year waiting lists for public dental treatment at the very time that the Keating scheme was operating.

I do not say for a second that clearing public dental waiting lists will be easy, just as I do not say for a second that eliminating elective surgery waiting lists would be easy. The states have a hard job. Running public hospitals is hard. Running public dental services is hard. I just think they should do their job. They should do their job, and I do not think the states doing their job is helped by the shadow minister for health saying, ‘It’s not their fault. Everything is the fault of the Howard government.’ I do not believe that there is any real way to end the blame game in this country by blaming everything on the policies of the Howard government.

The shadow minister talked about complete inaction from this government—total inaction from this government—on health. I simply table a speech which goes through some of the things which the government has done since 1996 and, in particular, since October 2003.

Another topic of this MPI is industrial relations. Members opposite get hysterical about the alleged evils of Work Choices. Let me just make it very clear. Since 1996 we have had more jobs, higher pay and fewer strikes—almost two million new jobs, including almost a quarter of a million new jobs since Work Choices was introduced in April last year. Basic award earnings are up 18 per cent in real terms since 1996. I think they only rose by about one per cent in real terms in the previous 13 years. The real wealth per head of Australians has increased by 100 per cent since 1996. Average weekly earnings in this country are up by 25 per cent in real terms since 1996.

I do not say for a second that there are not some people in this country who feel financial pressure. You can double your salary and, if you double your expenditure, you are still under financial pressure. I accept that. But the government’s responsibility is not to stop people spending; the government’s responsibility is to give them the opportunity of earning, and that is precisely what we have done since 1996.

I do not claim to be any great expert in the field of child care, but just for completeness, because I do not want people to think that the government has in any way run away from the topic of this MPI: the spending on childcare benefit has doubled over the life of this government, and the number of places has doubled under this government. I am advised that, in the last eight years of the former Labor government, childcare fees increased by 47 per cent in real terms. In the last 10 years under this government, childcare fees have increased by 22 per cent. Again, no-one likes increases. Unfortunately, in the real world, they are unavoidable, and the fact is that they have been much more moderate under this government than under its predecessor, and people have had much more by way of financial resources to deal with them under this government than under its predecessor. I have tried as best I can to deal soberly and sensibly with the topic of this MPI. I am sorry if question time was a bit thermonuclear, but I think the serious critique has been well and truly answered. (Time expired)

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