David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am really relishing this opportunity to talk about the hypocrisy of those on the other side when it comes to Medicare. They think they own Medicare because Gough Whitlam turned up with it. But who has increased spending and made it a more efficient system over the last few years? Let's start with the opposition's story about privatising Medicare that is designed to scare people. They think privatisation is some bogeyman that is coming. I might just quote the author of the Medibank and Medicare introductions in 1968. When he was talking about the privatisation of the nuts-and-bolts delivery of Medicare services like the back-of-house computer systems and tap-and-go technologies, John Deeble said:

It won't necessarily alter Medicare because it's the structure of Medicare—what money you get for what service—that matters, not who does the running of it.

That is what is happening here.

Business innovation happens all the time. Even Brian Owler, neurosurgeon and head of the AMA, made comments in the press last year that there needed to be some modernisation of the Medicare system. You can use tap and go in a coffee shop, but if you are trying to get your money from the Medicare system it is much less efficient. What is happening is that the marionettes here are responding to their puppetmasters in the Commonwealth Public Service Union who think their jobs might be threatened if there is a more efficient way of delivering the nuts and bolts of Medicare.

Let's look at the opposition's story about cuts to funding. I have looked at the papers for the forward figures for 2017-18 and there is a 21.5 per cent increase in Commonwealth funding for public hospitals. That is almost a one-fifth increase. That is $3.3 billion extra. To me, a cut means less next year then you had this year. But that is an increase. Going forward, payments to the states will be indexed to CPI. That is on the record. That is not a cut; that is an increase. The opposition are trying to drum up a scare campaign. That is all they can do. They will not take responsibility for the budgetary situation they left the country in. When we try to fix it, they try these emotional, scare based tactics. That is what they do. They run an emotional argument. They do not run a logical argument. We are all used to it, but some people in the press swallow it hook, line and sinker and do not question it.

Let's look at the dental system that the previous speaker spoke about. They mentioned the word 'children', as though that will pull on heartstrings. I can tell you what happened with the childhood dental scheme. It was criticised. The Chronic Disease Dental Scheme that the Labor Party dumped was actually delivering dental care. They replaced it with the childhood dental scheme. What happened? You had buses driving around the country and turning up outside schools, such as in my electorate, and getting all number of kids in, as the previous speaker said, for a wash, lube and oil change. Basically they got their teeth cleaned and had a couple of X-rays taken. The scheme used up all the money available and then said, 'Go down the road to the dentist.' So the kids turned up down there and there was no money left. It was the biggest scam. It was marketed as a breakthrough for kids, but there was not much actual dental care delivered. They just got a check, a clean with a high-speed brush and a lot of X-rays. All the money was used up. If they had cavities or needed other work, there was no money left to treat that. There was no way that complex stuff for people with really bad teeth was going to get done. The reality is that it was a failed scheme.

Not only that but we have increased funding to public dental schemes through the state agreements—$155 million was enough to treat 178,000 patients through the hospital dental scheme. In 2015-16 it was $200 million. We are delivering common-sense changes to the whole Medicare system. None of this emotional, scare driven campaign makes sense.

I cannot go without saying something about the scare campaign that we are cutting bulk-billing. Pathology and X-ray services got an incentive to increase bulk-billing rates, but that is the only bit that has changed. That is an efficiency. Bulk-billing continues— (Time expired)

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