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

I thank the member for Casey for his question. The problem in the 1990s with Medicare, as Prime Minister Hawke pointed out, was that it was unsustainable without a co-payment, and that is why Labor supported a co-payment when it came to our medicine scheme. We have a co-payment there to make our medicine system sustainable and we are arguing, as Bob Hawke did then, that we need a co-payment to make our system sustainable going forward. I want to get a better understanding of why there was common sense in the Labor Party then, but there is not now except of course for the member for Fraser, who is supportive of a co-payment as well, but I will come back to him in a second.

Mr Husic interjecting—

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