Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Ballarat for introducing this MPI. It is the perfect opportunity to dissect the utter hypocrisy of the opposition on this and many other fronts. In his budget reply speech just a few months ago, the Leader of the Opposition stated:

And a Labor budget will always protect Medicare. This means reversing the unfair Medicare freeze immediately.

I know economics isn't the strong suit of those opposite, but let me give them a bit of a history lesson on this matter. This is the freeze that was implemented by the Labor Party. The Medicare freeze was Labor's freeze. The member for Sydney is the architect of the freeze. The Turnbull government has removed Labor's Medicare freeze. We restored the indexation of the Medicare rebate in the 2017 budget, starting with bulk-billing incentives from 1 July this year, including the retention of incentives for pathology, diagnostic imaging, blood tests, X-rays, scans and pap smears. And from 1 July 2020 we're introducing, for the first time in 15 years, indexation for targeted diagnostic imaging, including mammography, fluoroscopy, CT scans and intervention procedures. Under the current government GP bulk-billing is at record levels. Under Labor it was at 81.9 per cent and under the Turnbull government it's at 85.4 per cent. So all the Mediscare talk is completely wrong. Bulk-billing is going up and up. This means more Australians are able to visit the doctor without having to reach into their pocket. But freezing Medicare was just the tip of the iceberg for Labor's poor record on health care.

When they were last in government, the Labor Party took a scalpel to the health budget, with surgeon-like precision. We had a lecture from the member for Ballarat about dental care. Labor cut $1 billion from Medicare for dental, and means tested it as well. Labor cut half a billion dollars from Medicare for pathology. Labor cut $664 million from Medicare for GPs. Labor cut $450 million from the Medicare safety net protections. Labor cut $2½ billion from pharmacy and medicines.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

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