Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before the election, this government said there would be no cuts to health, education or pensions. After coming to government, it proceeded to trash each of these election promises. Now the Prime Minister says he has changed his mind about the GP tax, the Medicare co-payment. Why? Is it because he has realised that you have to keep your election promises? No. Is it because he has realised that it is unfair to poorer and sicker Australians? No. The Prime Minister says it is because he has remembered—'remembered', if you do not mind—from his days as health minister that you cannot do anything without the support of the medical profession. This is a remarkable response. The only reason we do not have a GP tax right now is that Labor and the minor parties blocked this tax in the Senate. What a lame and unconvincing backflip this is. If it were in the sport of diving, it would be a complete belly whacker. If the government could get the support of Clive Palmer and the other crossbench senators, they would do it. Make no mistake about it; they would do it in a heartbeat.

The Prime Minister said in question time:

… the co-payment is dead, buried and cremated.

Now, where have we heard those words before? Yes, that is right; we heard them concerning Work Choices. But we know that the government are itching to bring back Work Choices. We hear a constant drumbeat from members opposite about penalty rates, individual work contracts and employers' dismissal powers. Just as they want to bring back Work Choices, in their hearts they still want to introduce a Medicare co-payment, a GP tax. Just wait a few days. We will get the Intergenerational reportthe member for Bass let the cat out of the bag here. The Intergenerational report will be a dodgy document where those who are digging a hole for Australia will ask to be given a bigger shovel.

Deputy Speaker, one of the things you will hear—indeed, we heard it this afternoon—is that our health expenditure is unsustainable and that consumers need to contribute more. But this comes from a government for whom Medicare and health spending are not priorities. Their priority is to cut corporate taxes. They could find more money by cracking down on multinational tax avoidance, as Labor would do and as we outlined in detail yesterday.

The government's attack on Medicare is not confined to the GP tax. They are in the process of cutting more than $57 billion from Australia's public hospitals and they have cut $368 million from preventative health programs to tackle obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse. According to the results of a global study into obesity rates published in the medical journal The Lancet, almost a quarter of the country's children and 63 per cent of the adult population are now deemed overweight. In my own community of Wills, diabetes is a major concern, with Moreland ranked fourth in metropolitan Melbourne, with 5.3 per cent of residents suffering the disease. Wills has been named by the National Stroke Foundation as Australia's 10th highest hot spot for strokes, with an estimated 106 deaths in 2014. The slashing of preventative health programs is short-sighted and shameful, and there is no prospect that, under this government, costs for patients will be contained. The Rural Doctors Association of Australia has said this afternoon:

… RDAA remains concerned about the Government's current commitment to maintain its freeze on the indexation of Medicare rebates paid to patients.

This 'Big Freeze' has the potential to increase costs for patients to a greater extent than the proposed co-payment, with the resultant restrictions and difficulties in accessing primary care services.

It will also put increased pressure on the viability of many rural practices.

Freezing indexation on these rebates is a one way road to nowhere and a seriously false economy… many practices will be forced to continue to raise their consultation rates …

I am proud to be a member of the Labor Party, which established Medicare over the strenuous objections of those opposite. We have continued to defend Medicare from the efforts of those opposite to subvert, undermine and white-ant it any time in the last 30 years when they thought they could get away with it. They never change. It is still our job to protect Medicare, and we are as committed to this task as ever.

See this speech in context