Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Budgets are about choices and priorities and this Prime Minister has shown his colours in his cruel, unfair and unnecessary choices and broken promises. The $3.5 billion GP tax is a prime example. We all know the opening line of that now famous election eve oath, 'no cuts to health'. And we know by heart the other promise, 'no new taxes'. And yet here we have a double breach of faith: a cut and a new tax. And, more than that, an attack on our universal healthcare system, a frontal attack on Medicare, an attempt to Americanise our internationally lauded health system.

Deaf to public outrage, deaf to doctors' advice, deaf to specialists and experts, deaf to calls that it will increase costs in hospital care: this Prime Minister, assisted by his Minister for Health, the member for Dickson, has persisted in his crusade to cruelly tax every sick Australian. Blocked at the front door by the parliament Australians elected to represent them, who have made it plain that this measure will not get through, it appeared briefly yesterday that they had seen sense and were prepared to drop it. But no. Rather, we get shambolic governance. And it seems, still deaf to sense, the Prime Minister has climbed back on his horse today determined to sneak his sick tax in by regulation. I call on the Prime Minister to do the honest thing, to honour his promises. (Time expired)

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