Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Ten years ago we were spending $8 billion a year on Medicare; today we are spending $20 billion. It is projected in 10 years to go to $34 billion. Over the last five years we have increased expenditure by 42 per cent. You can live in this fantasy land that Labor is in, that somehow you can continue to rack up $1 billion each month of borrowed money to pay off the interest bill alone. You can pretend that, with an ageing population, you can give all of these free services away. Or you can take a responsible approach and you can put Medicare on a sustainable path. That is what this government has done. We will make sure, as our population ages, as we march towards a country that is going to have 7½ thousand people diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's per week, that we can afford to—

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