Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There was this slight pause, and his ears went back. There was this look of shame as he ate his own vomit. Now, you cannot blame the dog for this. You cannot blame Baron for doing it because it is in his DNA. Just as it is in Baron's DNA to return to his own vomit, it is in the Liberal Party's DNA on health to attack Medicare—to hate Medicare. It is in their DNA. That is why in the Fraser years, in 1975, they promised to keep Medibank. In 1978 they charged a co-payment of $20. In 1981 they abolished it. In the 1980s Howard called Medicare a 'miserable, cruel fraud.' He promised to pull Medicare right apart. This is the hero of the Liberal Party. Fightback! We remember how Fightback!, on page 7, offered to end bulk billing unless you were a pensioner or a concession card holder—that is, a price signal. It was written in the document, there in black and white. Go and have a look at it.

Then, of course, we have Mr Abbott at the last election with Real Solutions. All those opposite went to the election with their little document. There was nothing about a $7 dollar co-payment in there. There was nothing about a $20 co-payment in there. No was nothing about a $5 cut to rebates in there. There was nothing about Medicare at all. But what do we have in government? We have it off again, on again. First, we had the $7 co-payment. And it was not just $7. It was $7 every time you go to a GP; $7 every time you get a scan; $7 every time you get a blood test—seven times seven times seven. That was what it was going to do. If you were diabetic, had asthma or some other recurring problem, you were going to be charged not $7 once but over and over again.

Eventually, the penny dropped in the Liberal Party and the panic set in. They worked out that the public was not all that keen on that. So what did they do? They went to the next phase. The next phase was, 'We'll just hack into the doctors' rebate. We'll just hit—

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