Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Given the short time available, I just want to correct the minister on a few things. When I said 'scarce health dollars' I was quoting the minister. We really need to get away, Minister, from this fact that health is a zero-sum situation. The government is still committed to $50 billion in tax cuts, of course, of which $7 billion is going to the big banks—and we know how much they like to protect the big banks. So this assumption that somehow there is no more money at all in the whole of government—ever—for health from hereon in is a wrong position for the minister to take.

The minister unwittingly referred to a comment where she said the PM allocated $192 million to mental health. That shows the minister does not have a lot of credibility around the cabinet table. She has clearly indicated that she has struggled to get Treasury and Finance and the rest of the cabinet to agree to put more money into the health portfolio more broadly. She has not given a guarantee about the GP rebate and the no-increased costs.

We have not had very many answers from her on some of the serious issues that are affecting consumers and patients out there—with the freeze, the pathology cuts, the diagnostic cuts, the imaging cuts, the child dental scheme, the PBS co-payments, the increased costs of medicine and the Medicare safety net. The list goes on about the number of things that the minister has not answered as she has been here today and has been required to do.

The public remain bitterly disappointed in the minister. She has made it abundantly clear that she does not have the authority she needs around the cabinet table to get the money. The health-scarce dollars that she refers to are only scarce because she does not have the ability to get any more money into the health portfolio. When you are talking mental health you are talking ageing, and you are talking health care for vulnerable Australians who are sick, unwell, old or have mental ill-health. Clearly, more money is needed and, clearly, this minister does not have the ability to get it out of the government.

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