Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

So he claims it is $60 in his seat. What you do not understand is that you will not be paying just $60—and that is people who are not being bulk-billed; bulk-billing rates are already high in this country and they will start to drop—it is concession card patients who are currently being bulk-billed who will be paying more and more, and patients who are currently paying co-payments will also be paying more than they currently pay because they will be cross-subsidising those patients. You do not understand how this works. What we are trying to do, and what we have done in health care for well over a decade now, is to make sure we have high rates of bulk-billing because that keeps fees low for everybody.

We heard the AMA president, who is often ridiculed by the other side of the House, say on budget night that the measure the government has put in this budget will mean 'the poorest, the sickest and the most vulnerable will be the hardest hit'. It confirms, as the Minister for Health has made clear, that this government is committed to forcing down bulk-billing by making more patients pay to see a doctor. Of course, that was just the start in this budget. We saw another $182 million hit from the health flexible funds, taking the total cuts to these crucial programs that fund drug and alcohol services, chronic disease services, communicable disease services to $1 billion under this government. They are cuts that will hurt. Of course, we have seen $1 billion cut out of the Child Dental Benefits Schedule.

This government is kidding itself if it thinks that millions and millions more patients on the public dental waiting list will somehow get seen when in Tasmania there is a waiting list of three years for public dental—if you can actually access it. The government is kidding itself. The budget has been described as smoke and mirrors. It has been described as a hoax and a fraud on the Australian people, and that is exactly what it is. A billion dollars cut out of kids dental in this budget. (Time expired)

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