Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

You could do it in your seat as well, because in Queensland there were only 700-odd people. This is a program that has failed and perhaps each of you would like to explain to your electorate why a program over three years has assisted 7,000 people and that Labor is offering a program that is going to cover up to one million people. That would be difficult for you to explain. We will wait and see, but I think that the community has a clear choice here—Labor’s program or a program that covers a handful of people where the government overpromised last time, is overpromising again and is not going to be able to deliver. Most interestingly, in the government’s rebuttal of this item the Minister for Health and Ageing in summing up this bill said that there was no problem with the referral system, no problem with team care plans and no problem with doctors or dentists. That is just a sign that the government has stopped listening. There is a hideous number of problems with the referral process for doctors and dentists, and changing a system where there were three Medicare items into one where there are 450 Medicare items will be a red-tape nightmare. The government can stand up and pretend as much as it likes that this is going to improve things, but it is going to make it much more complex and any minister who pretends that going from three Medicare items to 450 items is going to simplify a process for the health professionals involved has certainly lost touch not just with his portfolio but with the entire community.

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