David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I love it when the Labor Party come up with these MPIs on health! They always assume that, because they had Gough Whitlam and invented Medicare, they are the saviours of the whole health system. But when you look at the pillars of the health system—whether it is the Medicare Benefits Schedule, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the private health insurance system, grants to the state governments for their hospital systems or workforce measures—the coalition government has certainly got the runs on the board.

Let us start with bulk-billing rates for GPs. I have health department figures. The bulk-billing rate in 2012 was down to 81.9 per cent; now it is up to 85.4 per cent. There were 105 million bulk-billed GP services in 2012; now there are 125 million. There was $10.85 billion in Medicare billing in 2015—a $300 million increase. That is $1¼ billion more than in 2013. There is a lot of criticism about the freeze, but who brought the freeze in? They did.

Let us look at the health workforce. There was a problem with the health workforce. There were not enough medical practitioners, so we had to rely on overseas trained doctors. We are rejigging the workforce paradigm so that we get homegrown doctors working, training and living in regional Australia. We have a number of incentives. We announced $94 million for the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline and regional training hubs to expand the postgraduate training footprint. We have expanded the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program. We have three new university departments of rural health lined up for Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. We have given an extra $20 million to the Flying Doctor Service. The General Practice Rural Incentives Program is focused on areas where it is needed—not the major regional cities like Cairns and Townsville but places that are really rural and understaffed. There is a $3 difference in the bulk-billing incentive for rural general practice. We have $40 million being spent on more intern training opportunities in rural and private situations.

You also have to look at this lie about our so-called and mythical cuts to hospitals. In this four-year period, $2.9 billion more is going to state hospitals. By 2020, that will be $21.24 billion. That is $4 million more. This year, there is $7.9 billion more funding than in the last year of the Labor government—$7.9 billion more. We have retained Activity Based Funding, but like any sensible manager of massive amounts of money, we have capped it at 6½ per cent growth. Previously it was uncapped and unfunded. The incentive programs that the previous government rolled out after 2010 did not even have KPIs. As the Minister for Health mentioned, we have facilitated medicinal cannabis. We have allowed importation of CBD plants, we have liaised with the states and we have changed it from a schedule 9 to a schedule 8 drug. The setting up of authorised prescribers and a Special Access Scheme is underway. On smoking and obesity—the biggest things facing the country in terms of preventive health—we have got many runs on the board.

We have our quit smoking program and our Don't Make Smokes Your Story program. We have put $160 million into the Sporting Schools program. That is not for elite sports but for schoolchildren. Six thousand schools are taking part in Sporting Schools. We have the Healthy Food Partnership with the industry, public health and consumer groups. We are driving reformulation, portion control and better choices in the packaged food system with the health star rating. We have increased the child dental benefit back up to $1,000. We have not cut programs like the very effective Chronic Dental Disease Scheme that the minister was referring to.

In the PBS, over 1,000 new drugs have been listed, including ovarian cancer drugs such as olaparib, lung cancer drugs, hepatitis C treatments, cystic fibrosis drugs and the list goes on. (Time expired)

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