Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying in my earlier contribution on this bill, there are hundreds of thousands of senior Australians who have worked hard all of their lives, who have diligently put away money for a secure retirement and who will have their payments callously cut by this government. The budget includes a cut of $1.1 billion to older Australians through the abolition of the seniors supplement. The seniors supplement is an annual payment of $876 to people who receive the Commonwealth senior's health card. At the same time as government does this, it is also cutting $1.3 billion in concessions for pensioners and seniors which are to help them pay their water and electricity bills, rates and public transport fares. The Abbott government is cutting every single cent of the money that the Commonwealth puts towards concessions for these seniors that are for things like electricity and water bills and council rates.

We know that for many of these seniors these concessions are absolutely vital to their budget and to meet their costs of living. When you are on a low fixed income, it is extraordinarily difficult to manage those things. Yet this government has cut the money that the Commonwealth gave to the states and territories to assist with those very concessions so as to help those people deal with cost of living pressures. This is not to mention that the government is hitting older Australian with the new GP tax and higher costs on medicines. We know that many older Australians who are coming through the system now have certainly not been the beneficiaries of a lot of the prevention work that is happening or that was happening. As they age, they are finding that they do need to visit the doctor more and more. We know that they are more reliant on medications to keep themselves well and that they do access the health system more.

What this government wants to do with its new $7 GP tax is absolutely going to hit them. We know from the modelling that the University of Sydney has done that where it actually hits the hardest is on young families with children and on older Australians. It hits those two cohorts of patients. It is not about income level. It affects those two cohorts of patients in particular because of their need to access GPs, their need to access blood tests and pathology—and you will remember that the GP tax is also that—and their need to access diagnostic imagining as well. It is not just one visit; it is every time you visit the GP. The concessions only kick in after 10 visits—and that is 10 visits per year. You then tick over to the next year and you have to do 10 again. So for those on concessions that is an extra $70. That might not be much for members opposite, but I can tell you now that the from stories we have heard from the front line—GPs and patients who are contacting our electorate offices—this is a lot of money. I know that the member for Gilmore, who is not in the chamber now—just dismissed it as just a cup of coffee. Joe Hockey has dismissed it as a couple of middies of beer or a packet of cigarettes. They have dismissed it as that; but we are talking about people who are absolutely on the margins, who are managing every single dollar of their budget. For them, it will be $70 to go to the doctor—10 visits—before they then hit the concessional rate of this GP tax; that is an enormous amount of money. It is not just an enormous amount of money for low-income people; it is also an enormous amount of money for those people who are on fixed incomes, who may not necessarily be accessing a pension, who may not necessarily be accessing other benefits but who are in fact on a fixed income—and that is what this government wants to do.

As I said, a recent report from the University of Sydney revealed that the most likely impact of the GP tax will be on pensioners. An age pensioner couple with concession cards would pay on average $40 in co-payments for GP visits and tests, plus $59 for medications—$199 extra out of their budgets

The study reinforced the concerns of Labor and shared by the Consumer Health Forum, the AMA and the GP organisations that introducing a co-payment for GP visits, pathology, and imaging services could deter vulnerable groups from seeking medical care. The report was absolutely clear: elderly people will be hit very hard by the Prime Minister's GP tax. Again, the question has to be posed: how is that fair? How is it fair to ask more from Australian pensioners, who have already contributed so much to this country over so many decades?

We saw yesterday the first of the health budget bills come into this parliament—the government's decision to increase the costs of pharmaceuticals. And then, in a nasty little surprise, not only did they increase the costs of medicines but they also made it much harder for people to reach the safety net. The safety net is for those patients who particularly need to have multiple medications, and many of those are older people with chronic disease conditions. So, each time you go to the pharmacist, if you are a general patient on general concession, it is $5 extra, on top of what you already pay. For concessional card holders it is an extra 80c every time you fill a script. And trying to reach the safety net has become harder and harder and harder.

In their own budget papers, for example, they say that by 2018 concession card holders will have to fill 68 scripts before they hit the safety net. That is what they did yesterday. It is absolutely one of the most serious measures for older Australians in terms of their costs of living and how they manage their budget. What we saw yesterday was the absolute debacle of six speakers opposite—and I can see that they now have a cohort of people who have health backgrounds whom they are asking to speak on health budget bills. That is a good thing, and hopefully they have some experience to bring to the table about what is actually happening within the health system and how you actually work with vulnerable older patients in GP surgeries.

So, six speakers were selected to speak on the bill, and there was not a single marginal-seat backbencher who had the courage to come in and defend this measure, who had the courage to come in and actually debate the measure. Then we had the debacle of the minister who is responsible for this measure—whose job it is to see this measure through the parliament, to then go and explain it to people, to then go and get it through the Senate—not turning up for consideration in detail. In fact, he was in the chamber, he gagged debate on the bill and then he left, so he could not be present for consideration in detail.

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