Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

No matter how hard the minister tries, Australians don't trust the Turnbull government with the future of Medicare. They have good reason not to. The track record of the coalition when it comes to Medicare is appalling. The coalition government has never, ever been committed to Medicare. It began with the coalition government tearing it down at their first opportunity when they came to government after the 1975 election. The only reason this government has not done even more to dismantle Medicare is that they know that the Australian people are watching every move they make. They know that the Australian people voted very clearly in the last election to preserve and safeguard the future of Medicare.

But nothing more undermines Medicare than the government funding cuts to public hospitals, to public dental services and to the MBS rebates. Every time public funding is cut, more of the costs are transferred onto the patient or onto the health professional that is providing the services. And that undermines the universal healthcare system that this country is very proud of. We have a healthcare system that stands amongst the best in the world because it was brought in by Labor and because we have standards that we've been able to meet for decades. When the public health system is under stress, it is the people that are already struggling, the people that are facing hardship, the people that already have chronic illnesses, the people who are already disadvantaged who will suffer the most.

With respect to the Medicare freeze that this government claims it has now lifted, it is the slow thawing of the freeze. We know full well from the government's own documents and from their statements that it's only children and concession card holders that benefit from that thawing of the freeze this year. The GPs and specialists freeze isn't lifted for another 12 months. The specialist procedures and allied health providers freeze comes off in 2019, and only certain diagnostic services will have the freeze lifted in 2020. That means that for some of these providers the freeze has been in place for up to six years and in some cases will continue.

As the shadow minister has pointed out, people who suffer from illnesses like asthma and diabetes, or pregnant woman or those who recently have had a baby, will not be covered by the lifting of the Medicare freeze. Indeed, we have some 300,000 women a year or more who not only have to pay for the direct medical costs but, as we all know, incur additional costs at the time of having a baby that are subject to this freeze. That is because the government is indirectly—in fact, directly—cutting billions of dollars of services as a result of continuing the freeze.

The savings to government that arise from the freeze continuing run into billions of dollars, and those billions of dollars in costs are being transferred to the patients and perhaps, in some cases, to the professionals who are prepared to wear them. The average increase for a service across the country as a result of maintaining the freeze is now over $7 since this government came to office. What it means is people either do not go to see their doctor or they go to the outpatients of the public hospital, in turn putting more pressure on the public hospital services. Not surprisingly, those public hospital services are now being stressed out more than ever before, with elective surgery waiting lists now blowing out to 14 months or more, and so on.

With respect to the $300 million of dental cuts, the reality is that every time a person does not go to the dentist because they can't afford it and have to wait over a year to get public treatment, it affects the rest of their health. So in turn there are other health costs that the nation wears because the government foolishly cuts a service that could have avoided those costs.

The last comment I want to make is about how the government's cuts are affecting people in regional and rural Australia, where people are already at a disadvantage for a whole host of reasons and where most of our poorer people live. If you look at the stats, it's the regional and remote areas where some of the lowest-income people in this country live. For them, the cuts mean even more disadvantage, because the health providers simply cannot continue to provide them, and so their disadvantage is in fact exacerbated.

This is a government that continues to hurt Australians because it continues to undermine the very health services that Australians rely on, and they are the Medicare services that this country has provided for years. (Time expired)

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