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

I am pleased to speak on this matter of public importance, which is about the chaos, incompetence and broken promises of the Abbott government. There has been no clearer display of that than what we saw this morning. Yesterday we had the Prime Minister's office briefing senior journalists—very serious journalists—in our press gallery that the GP tax was dead. This policy has been around for 12 months, the news broken first by Samantha Maiden in December last year that the government was contemplating it. The government denied it and it went back and forth forever and finally it was announced in the budget, the government coming clean with the Australian people. Here we had the Prime Minister's own office briefing senior journalists. They do not just make stuff up. There were senior journalists reporting this morning that the Prime Minister's office had said that the GP tax was dead.

What an absolute debacle we had this morning. The Minister for Health was nowhere to be seen anywhere in the media—it was left to Minister Abetz to go out there and try to clean things up. We had the Prime Minister saying last night saying that the GP tax was back on and that they think it is the best thing since sliced bread, and we then had the Minister for Health, Peter Dutton, out there saying that they were going to proceed with this and would do anything to get it through; they would take any measure possible to get it through. We then had the Treasurer saying that they were going to go through the parliament and would only do it by parliamentary means, they would only do it through legislation. Then we had the Assistant Minister for Health over in the Senate during question time saying that they will do it anyway—they might do it by regulation but they will do it anyway. During an interview on ABC Gippsland I felt sorry for the poor old member for Gippsland. In an interview on his local radio station he is left hanging out there, having to say, 'Look, I really don't know what is going on; I am sure someone will tell me at some point.' How embarrassing—a senior long-term member of the government left out there hanging this morning, unable to say whether the government was finally going to have the ticker to get rid of its GP tax. What an absolute chaos of a government we saw this morning.

The member for Bennelong was saying it is all about messaging and that the Prime Minister is sorry he has not got his messaging right, but it is not the messaging that is wrong—it is the policy. Why does this government fail to understand that this is not health policy—this is about taxing people who go to the doctor. This is about putting a barrier in the way of the most efficient part of our health system—the part of our health system that has not experienced this blow-out in growth. Yes it is steadily growing, but not beyond any sustainable means. The MBS item for doctor visits is sustainable, so why would you put a barrier in the way of the most efficient part of the health system—going to see a doctor?

The Australian public do not like this policy, and nor do the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Doctors Reform Society, the Nurses and Midwives Foundation or health practitioners across the country. It is not just about general practitioners—it is about, for example, radiography. Every time you go for an X-ray, an MRI or a PET scan, every time you go for a blood test or other pathology test, it is a tax on every single part of that primary care part of our health system. That is what the government wants to do—tax you every time you go to the doctor, you go for a blood test or you get an X-ray.

What sort of government is it that has as almost its sole health policy blocking people going to a general practitioner? This government has decided that there are a million visits a year that should be stopped. That is its health policy. What sort of chaotic, irresponsible government is it that thinks it is decent health policy to stop people accessing a general practitioner? We have been encouraging people to go to the doctor to manage their chronic disease, to prevent ill-health, to go and find out what they need to do to keep well and to manage episodic illness. The part of the system that keeps Australians well and that has been serving this country for over 100 years, general practice is an important part of our health care system. Yet here we have this chaotic government that it is suggested cannot get its messaging right, but it cannot get its policy right. This policy stinks to high heaven. Everybody in the healthcare sector, anyone who knows anything about health, knows that the government should ditch this policy. They have been told to ditch this policy but we know the only way to ditch it is to ditch this government. (Time expired)

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