Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Health Insurance Amendment (Safety Net) Bill 2015 represents cuts of some $270 million to the Medicare safety net. So much for the promise of no cuts to health that this lot opposite promised before the last election. I am here today to tell those opposite that the Australian people are not the bottom line on an accounting spreadsheet.

The caps in the bill are not supported by independent reports or input from health professionals. These are blanket caps across a multitude of MBS items or services. The Minister for Health will tell you that the new safety net simplifies the arrangements—but that comes at a cost. It abolishes the existing, original Medicare safety net and the extended Medicare safety net. If you were walking a tightrope and relying on a safety net in case you fell, you would not use a safety net offered by the Abbott-Turnbull government, because you could guarantee it would not be there when you needed it.

The Liberals' record on universal health care speaks for itself. In 1974 the Liberals, under Snedden, voted against Medibank—Australia's first universal healthcare scheme, introduced by one of our most progressive prime ministers, Mr Gough Whitlam. Between 1975 and 1981, the Liberals proceeded to rip Medibank apart until a Labor government, led by Prime Minister Bob Hawke, came back in and reintroduced the Medicare framework in 1985. In 1987 the then Liberal opposition leader, John Howard, told Australians that bulk-billing would be scrapped, and in 1993 John Hewson took that policy to an election.

In 2004, before the election, now ex-prime minister Tony Abbott made a 'rock-solid, ironclad' guarantee he would not raise the Medicare safety net threshold. But what did he do straight after the election, in his usual fashion? With a quick backflip, he did exactly the opposite, because the costings that he had put in place blew out. So much for the theory of great Liberal financial management and control. We know that that, like everything else they told Australians before the last election, has turned out to be nothing but a pure lie.

The Howard government oversaw $1 billion of cuts to the public healthcare system across the board. Under the Abbott-Turnbull government now, we see further cuts being proposed to the healthcare system. These cuts make way for a much greater role for private health insurers and the realisation of that great Liberal dream, the thing that they have embroidered on their pillows—that is, to privatise the health system and take us down the American route. While the Americans are looking at going into universal health care through President Obama's 'ObamaCare', this lot over here in Australia want to go back to the Dark Ages. They do not think that Australians deserve universal health care. They do not think that people should be entitled to go to a doctor or to hospital and get the treatment they need for their illness, knowing that wherever they go they will get the best quality health care.

You have to wonder what those opposite think at night-time, when they lie on their 'Let's get rid of universal health care' pillows, dreaming and fantasising about bringing back a GP tax, which they tried once, twice, three times, four times—and they are now sitting there waiting, ready to go for the fifth time. It is in their DNA. It is there every day. They desperately want to make sure that Australians do not get the support of universal health care because their long-term vision is to privatise it. They love privatising things. We saw that with John Howard. The government come in here and say, 'Look at the great work that Howard and Costello did.' It is pretty easy to build your bank account when you sell off every single profit-producing government entity that we have. Then they sit there and say, 'Look, we've got lots of money!' Of course, that is only in the short term. In the long term, because of the work that they did in government during those Howard years that they liked to keep really quiet about until recently, we have structural deficit problems caused by a government that could not manage itself or the Australian economy. If we look at the recent history of health policy, it becomes absolutely clear. The coalition hate universal health care. As I said, if you were walking a tightrope, you would not want to rely on this government to supply one. The safety net is there, and it exists to ensure that patients facing significant out-of-pocket costs in one year are protected. This is consistent with the principle of Medicare: every Australian should have access to the highest quality of care, regardless of their capacity to pay. One of the important things is to make sure that people on fixed and low incomes are protected and given the support that they need and deserve in our healthcare system.

Labor is standing up for the thousands of patients who will be impacted by this poorly developed policy. I am standing up for my communities in McEwen who will be impacted by this poorly developed policy. As we have seen with every independent report, and every piece of information and input from healthcare professionals, we should oppose this bill. It is not right, it is not fair and it is typical of this government, which has no idea what it is doing but likes to talk at people and tell them how it feels. But when it comes to action, it is missing! It is gone. Nothing happens. You have the Turnbull mouthpiece but the Abbott policies. It is time that this government stops talking at people and starts actually listening to them.

On that note, I oppose this bill.

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