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

You keep saying that, but it has dropped since the election. The GP bulk-billing rate, item No. 23, has dropped since the election. That is what has happened.

A government member interjecting—

Yes, it has. You can squib if you want, but it has actually dropped since the election. We know, if we talk to people across the country, the impact that it has had. But what the government kept secret in the budget papers is that the freeze for all GP items will not be lifted until 2020.

Minister, there are 113 items—including mental health plans and healthcare assessments, which provide really important services to people; pregnancy support; and long consultations—that you have decided to keep frozen until 2020. In fact, all your budget has actually done is implement the original measure of the member for Warringah, the then Prime Minister. That is all your budget has done. You have maintained that. You have delivered for Tony Abbott exactly what he wanted to do on the MBS freeze. Minister, if an election and a change in health minister would not get you to drop your freeze immediately, what will?

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