Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to join this important debate on a critical issue: the government's undermining of universal health care in Australia. How very interesting to be able to follow the contribution of the member for Bowman. There are probably two things I should say in respect of his contribution. The first is that I am sure it is a great loss to the medical profession and his former patients that he is with us here. I am very disappointed for them and a little bit disappointed for his constituents as well. Can I also say, with respect to the member for Bowman, that he has changed his tune. Not all that long ago he was standing shoulder to shoulder with government members fighting the GP tax, or at least one of its many iterations—standing up for universal health care, a stance that I commend him for, but I think he declared victory a little too early. Maybe you have been reprogrammed, because those comments you made at the end did not seem to me to be terribly consistent with any support for universal health care. It is quite the reverse. It was almost a plea for the Americanisation of our healthcare system, which is very disappointing.

The Prime Minister did something interesting today—probably a few things of interest. He called for a national conversation on what it means to be Australian. I think this debate is an opportunity to take the Prime Minister up on that offer, because I think a big part of what it means to be Australian is our egalitarian ethos, our concern for fairness and our concern for all of us. At the core of that is our innate sense that access to health care must be based on need and not wealth. Universal health care is at the core of Australia's social compact and it is a stark dividing line between our political parties. Labor stands for universal health care. The conservative parties—while they mouth some weasel words and dissemble from time to time, as we saw at the end of the member for Bowman's contribution and as we saw throughout the minister's contribution—have no regard for universal health care. They have plenty of form in this regard. It goes right back to the 1970s.

Last year I was very pleased in the parliament to celebrate 30 years of Medicare, but, in making that celebration I reflected, as other Labor members did, that it should have been a 40th birthday party. Interestingly, the parallels are quite acute. In 1975, opposition leader Fraser promised to keep Medibank. What did he do after the election? Does anyone remember? He broke his promise and ripped up universal health care. In 2013, we had a very similar approach. We had a Prime Minister who promised no cuts to health and promised to be the best friend of Medicare, but instead, by his actions and the actions of his government under two failed health ministers, proved exactly the opposite—ripping apart bulk-billing through ceaseless attacks on people's capacity to access primary health care without having to pay. There were five attempts at introducing a GP tax through the front door and now, in this budget, we see the back door is the approach—a GP tax by stealth. Members opposite and the government do not resile from their attacks on universal health care and do not resile from their attacks on Medicare, despite weasel words to the contrary. We saw that throughout last year, through the attacks on access to GPs, through attacks on preventative health and through $60 billion in cuts to the health system.

This year's budget is really a continuation. We are seeing more of the same. The cuts to dental care will have a shocking impact on children. Anyone in the parliament who was here for the contribution of the shadow minister, the member for Ballarat, could not but feel our sense of responsibility to do more for young children and their teeth. The life consequences are just so drastic. I think about the cuts to workforce. I think about the $1 billion of cuts going to important preventative health projects.

Across all this there is one key theme. Whatever words government members mouth, they have no commitment to universal health care. Only the Labor Party stands for Medicare. That was true in the 1970s; it was true in the 1980s, when at least John Howard was honest enough to say what he meant; and it is true in 2015. We will send to the Australian people a real values signal, and that is that we will fight for this critical element of the Australian settlement.

See this speech in context