Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Why aren't you a minister? That's possibly another question, but I'll come back to that! Members on this side of the House understand clearly why it is that this government can't be trusted with Australia's healthcare system—but so do the Australian people. They are totally onto you guys.

As part of the Medicare task force, the member for Macarthur and I have travelled far and wide across Australia. We've heard from people in Braddon who cannot access affordable health care in their electorate. They can't find a specialist. Talking about out-of-pocket expenses, try being somebody living in Braddon, with no access to specialist care—the closest one is in Melbourne—and being told to fly yourself and your family up to Melbourne, to put yourselves up for the night, to take the family with you, to take days off from your job. These guys here think that's okay. They think that this is an acceptable state of affairs for health care in Australia. There is nothing acceptable about subjecting your citizens to second-rate health care.

It's all right if you're living on the North Shore of Sydney. There are plenty of bulk-billing doctors there. Come over to my electorate in Newcastle. You don't get a bulk-billing doctor there. We have the member for Herbert and the member for Longman—plenty of people on this side of the House—who are fierce advocates for the retention of a universal healthcare system in this country. Their electorates are hurting badly because the guys opposite have not lifted a single component of that Medicare freeze to relieve the burden on Australian consumers.

See this speech in context