Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

If there is an upside to the member for Ballarat's bad behaviour in question time it is that we only got a five-minute contribution instead of a 10-minute one. Once again, we are hearing a shrill and churlish contribution from the shadow minister for health. It was a nice bookend to the old regular, the member for Blair, who can mount a scare campaign with the best of the rest of them. It was interesting to listen to the member for Blair criticising the aged-care schemes that were actually put in by his own government.

There are two things I do know about older Australians, Member for Blair. One is that they can be easily frightened about their future security and health needs by a scare campaign, as we are seeing now. The other thing about older Australians is that they want to leave their country in a better state for their children and grandchildren than they had for themselves.

What we saw under the Labor government was that their approach to aged care and health care was to dress the Prime Minister in a set of scrubs and march him around the countryside over a couple of months with photo opportunities in operating rooms and emergency rooms. They came up with a plan that basically raided the savings of the Australian people. What we have now with the current Turnbull government is a government that is actually governing and managing healthcare, aged care and the finances of this nation with an eye to the future. The previous government acted like a mob of squatters that had moved into the House and squandered the assets without any real thought to the long-term sustainability.

Today we are talking about: how are we going to manage health care and aged care in a sustainable fashion to ensure that we have got a system in place for the baby boomers in 20 years time—when Australia reaches its maximum capacity to care for older people—that will still be viable and relevant to the country at that particular time?

So there is no doubt that aged care and health care are significant factors, and we have got members here—and the member for Makin had his contribution as well—who talked about the needs of older Australians. Those opposite were the ones who were hell-bent on introducing a carbon tax that had the older people in my electorate too frightened to turn on their air conditioners in summer and their heaters in winter. Our Meals on Wheels volunteers were finding people under the doona in the middle of the day, because they were not going to turn on the switches in their houses.

We need to manage this issue in a responsible fashion. It does not mean forking out money hand over fist, raiding the savings of this nation and making our children and grandchildren pay for our own care. We need to make sure that we set this country up so that we can leave it sound, stable and viable in the future. What we have seen with the health minister's survey is: consultation with the public to engage with what the people of Australia really think, and need and act accordingly.

Once again, we have seen a matter of public importance brought on by members of the opposition—and indeed aged care and health care are matters of public importance. If you survey the members of my electorate, aged care comes up as the No. 1 issue. Therefore it should be treated with a level of responsibility and respect for the people who are very much relying on this system. It should not be seen as a tool to scare people with bogus claims about increasing GST or a whole heap of other things that are not actually on the table; we should be dealing with this and the facts in a sensible manner.

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