Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The last thing I want you to do is eject the member for Hume. He is making the case very strongly. I submit to you, please, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker: do not chuck him out. He is making a very useful contribution and outlining what the Liberals and Nationals really think about Medicare, that it is unaffordable. We think there are social standards in Australia, social standards that are created by Labor governments, by and large, where improvements are made to the social structure of this nation. And there have been important ones. There is the age pension, workplace safety and superannuation, and right up there amongst the most important is Medicare.

We see other nations debating health care—most notably, the United States. The United States spends roughly double what we do on health care, for poorer results. We in Australia get it right when it comes to health care, by and large. We have got it right for the last 30 years. We have got it right because of a thing called Medicare, which is efficient but caring, which ensures that Australians get the health care they deserve, regardless of their income. That is what it does, and it does so efficiently. Medicare is one of the great Australian achievements.

Other nations around the world look to Medicare and to its successes, and see that it should be implemented. A couple of weeks ago, we saw the Prime Minister in New York congratulating the President of the United States for overturning the healthcare reforms of the democratic administration—again, perhaps a little Freudian slip, unlike the member for Hume here who told us what he really thought of Medicare in those remarks on New York as well as what he thinks in his interjections. The Hansard will be very clear when it comes to the member for Hume's interjections. I would encourage him to get on the speaking list because I don't think he is on it. I think he should get himself on the speaking list, because his contribution is a very good one. I am sure the member for Forde would be happy to yield for him and give the member for Hume a go even earlier in the speaking list, because he has strong views about Medicare and its affordability.

We will take no lectures from the government when it comes to Medicare—far from it—because they do not believe in it. They do not believe in it one little bit and they attack it at every single opportunity. They have attacked it from 2013 onwards in particular. When they could not get the GP tax through, they changed the MBS freeze. Now that the MBS freeze has cost them votes and seats at the election, they crab walk away from it and they come up with this ridiculous little Medicare Guarantee Bill. They can pass their Medicare Guarantee Bill; we will not give them the satisfaction of voting against it. If it provides some transparency and visibility, as the Minister for Finance calls it, well, that is fine with us. But we know that the Liberal Party and the National Party really hate Medicare and will attack it at every opportunity.

Let me say this very clearly: we will defend it at every opportunity. We will defend it when they cut it. We will defend it when they attack it. We will defend it when they attack it in actions and in words. We will stand up for Medicare—one of the great community standards which Labor gave Australia. It took us a couple of goes. It got us in in the 1970s when we tried it. We legislated it when we came in and then they repealed it. The Labor Party managed to entrench it in the 1980s and nineties, and every time the Liberal and National Party have come after it since, we have defended it and we will defend it at every opportunity.

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