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

I hate to tell you, Minister, inflation and population growth is not a health policy. That is just standing still. In fact, that is just treading water. All that is doing is treading water, Minister. It is actually not a policy. What we have actually seen is bulkbilling in this country decline. The minister will say, 'Oh, no, bulkbilling is going up.' What he does, of course, is compare bulkbilling this quarter to what it was in 2015. He does not look at the trajectory of bulkbilling and what is actually happening to the trajectory of bulkbilling. The trajectory of bulkbilling is going down. There were 383,000 visits to GPs in the last six months that were not bulkbilled that would have been bulkbilled before the election.

Unfortunately, we know it is the most vulnerable in our community being hit. GP clinic after GP clinic have been forced to raise price fees and restrict bulkbilling. We have Latitude 19 Health in the electorate of Herbert, Brighton Doctors Surgery in the electorate of Lyons, Patrick Street Clinic in Ulverstone in the electorate of Braddon, Bowral Street Medical Practice in the electorate of Whitlam—there are examples of practices all the way across the country that have been increasing their fees. You just go and speak to any patient out there in the community about what is happening with Medicare at the moment and what is happening with their access to GPs and the costs people are paying. They will tell you that they are having to pay more and more. Don't forget, this is after the Prime Minister on national television told Australians that they would not pay more to see a GP as a result of this government's freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule.

How many chances is this government going to have to actually attack Medicare? We are asking you, in this budget, to finally acknowledge that you got it wrong. Stop whingeing about Labor's tactics during the election campaign. Stop rising constantly and saying, 'Oh, this was terrible. Look at what Labor did to us during the election campaign.' Actually do something about it. You have an opportunity in this budget to lift the freeze. You have an opportunity to admit that you got it wrong when it came to health policy.

What a shame that this is what we are in here debating today. We are not debating about increased investment in innovation in health care. We are not able to debate what new policy initiatives we need to bring forward to make sure that we actually have better and more affordable health care in this nation. What we are debating is trying to get this government to lift the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule that it put in place for six long years—an ice age when it comes to the Medicare system. What we are trying to do is, basically, get them to go back to ground zero—to the starting point—where funding was right at the start of this freeze. That is, basically, what we are asking the government to do.

The minister, I know, loves to quote—he has the very old-fashioned managerial speak, I would have to say—his 'four pillars' of health care. Four pillars, the last time I looked, is a gin that people quite like, apparently! But your four pillars of health care, I hate to tell you, Minister, are crumbling under this government. Medicare, with the freeze, has actually seen an erosion in people's access to general practice. What we need to know is whether this government will actually lift the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and actually back patients in.

The government has got itself in a world of pain when it comes to this issue. It is not just going to have to lift the freeze for general practitioners and specialists; it will have to lift it for diagnostic imaging, as well. That is what you promised in the election campaign. You signed a deal and put out a press release that you were going to unfreeze diagnostic imaging, as well. You have to deal with the issue that you did, again, during the election campaign—pathology rents. That is the deal that you did where GPs are saying you are going to undercut their entire business model and cost them their practices. So it is really important that the government fixes this because that is what it promised it was going to do. The government still has on the table cuts to bulkbilling incentives for pathology and diagnostic imaging which will be seeing patients pay more when they head to the pathologist and when they need to get those important tests.

So this is a test for this minister. We have two days to go in this last sitting week before the budget. Will you lift the freeze, Minister? Are you actually going to be able to convince your cabinet colleagues to get rid of the freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule and finally admit this government got it wrong when it came to healthcare policy and is unable to protect Medicare.

Mr Hill interjecting—

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