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

We have had now two question times and media appearance after media appearance of those opposite saying: 'We have learnt. We have been chastened by the experience of the leadership spill motion we had in our party room. We have been chastened. We are going to promise change.' What have we seen in the two question times and in the speech just delivered? Absolutely no change. No change to the unfair budget. Which measures have you dropped? What have you learnt from the experience? It is not about who sits in the Prime Minister's chair; it is about the strength of your policies, and your policies stink.

The Australian people have said to you very clearly that they think your GP tax is unfair. If you are not experiencing in your electorates GPs coming to your door telling you what the outcome of the policies of this government will be on bulk-billing and on their practices then your doors are obviously not open. If you are not having families tell you about $100,000 university fees and what that will mean for the aspirations of their young people then you are clearly not listening. Have you not talked to pensioners about what this government has done and is deciding to do to our pensioners and the unemployed? Look at the cuts that are happening to emergency relief services, to homelessness services across the country—some of the most vulnerable people in our community. You have not been listening.

What we know is that this government has not changed at all. It has tried to have a reset and claimed to have a reset but it has not. We have had the same language and the same speeches over and over again and the same policies are sitting as a stinking carcass around the neck of every single one of your backbenchers.

Let us talk about health. We had at the Press Club last week Tony Abbott giving the great reset speech after a disastrous 2014 and not one single mention of health was made in that speech. It was a speech that confirmed yet again that the Prime Minister and his government have absolutely no interest in listening to anybody and remain committed to this deeply unfair budget—every one of them. Nothing more graphically illustrates that than this government's commitment to its GP tax, a tax that has destroyed the electorate's trust in the government. After three attempts—three rewrites of this policy—and now two health ministers the government is still determined to introduce it.

This government still intends to introduce $2 billion worth of cuts directly to general practice, which will be passed on to patients across this country. This government has not said it is walking away from the freeze on indexation or the $5 reduction in rebate, which is the GP tax. The government still has $2 billion worth of hits to general practice that will be passed on to patients. We know that general practices across the country have put up notices about their new fees and what those fees will mean for patients across the country and what they will mean for bulk-billing for general patients. It will see a collapse in bulk-billing rates.

This government has absolutely not changed one iota when it comes to its attack on Medicare—its attack on the universal health insurance system that is Medicare—and its attack on bulk-billing rates and general practice in this country. Two health ministers have now publicly committed to this tax and, while the new minister promises to consult, she insists that no matter what she hears, the GP tax is still absolutely and utterly on the table. And we know that every single member of the front bench and every single member of the backbench is committed to this policy because they have stayed with this budget, and they have stayed with this Prime Minister. The members of the front bench on the ERC—every single one of them—have supported this GP tax. And we heard the member for Wentworth, in particular, when he was asked about the budget, say very clearly, 'I certainly do support it. I support all of the budget.' That includes, of course, the GP tax measure.

During the Griffith by-election, when we raised the possibility that the government was going to introduce a GP tax, what did the foreign minister say? She said that the Labor Party and the now member for Griffith—the fantastic member for Griffith—was scaremongering. She said: 'No, we haven't got any of these sorts of policies at all. You're scaremongering.' This government has not changed its spots at all. It still wants to destroy.

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