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

Following on from the comments of the member for Franklin about the promise the government made around getting an MBS item for eating disorders and the lack of progress there appears to have been on that, I flag that there have been a number of other areas where the minister has been pretty quick to try and shut down a media inquiry or to do things with stakeholders where he's made promises that haven't been delivered. I will highlight a couple of those in particular. One is in relation to catheter ablation, a commitment Hearts for Hearts believe that they had as part of the Prostheses List review. In fact, I remember being at a function where the minister said that he would deal with this issue, so that seems to be a substantially outstanding one. The other is the review of MRI licences, which was announced in response to a media inquiry. I point to the fairly outrageous fact that we have a One Nation senator claiming that they had done a deal with the government about an MRI licence for Kalgoorlie. That the government thinks it is appropriate in any way, shape or form to do a deal on $80 billion worth of tax cuts with One Nation in return for a vote on an MRI licence, is something that the government should reflect on very strongly. Frankly, if we had an independent corruption commission I would be referring that to such a commission. It's a very, very dangerous precedent to be setting.

In this debate there are a number of questions that have gone unanswered. The member for Franklin asked questions about the government's plan to deal with the issue of aged-care packages. There are a hundred thousand people waiting for aged-care packages, particularly for level 3 and 4 packages. The government made a promise that it would deal with this issue, and it has been totally inadequate in addressing it. We have had questions about the MBS item for dialysis and whether the amount of funding that was made available for that will be enough to deliver on making sure we have dialysis in rural and remote communities. I've asked questions about savings within the budget—particularly around the GP visa savings and whether that means that there's going to be a cut to services or a hole in the budget. The government has been totally unable to answer them, despite the fact that the AMA says that it is an issue. We've asked questions about MRI licences. And we've asked the government whether they'll finally admit what is absolutely and utterly self-evident to anybody listening to this debate: that 45 per cent is less than 50 per cent, and that means a cut in public hospital funding.

The minister is a clever politician in the way he really likes selectively to use funding and in the way in which he says, 'We've got record growth in funding.' Each government can claim to have record growth in Medicare and record growth in the PBS because each government, as a result of growth in population and growth in access to services—growth in usage under activity based funding—actually sees growth in hospital funding each year and in Medicare funding each year in particular. Every government can claim that it's got record funding. But what this government has done, and needs to own, is cut public hospital funding and Medicare funding. In each and every budget when we have stood here there have been new cuts within the budget. The government likes to say 'Oh no, it's not.' Own it. This is your budget; own it. This is what you've done, so say, 'This is what we're spending.' That's great. It will either be welcomed or not welcomed—that's fine. But say what you've cut as well. Actually be up-front and honest about that.

We've had the member for Franklin ask about funding in residential aged care and the crisis that is emerging there and the billions of dollars that have been cut. I am sure the minister does desperately care about these issues. I think he's a decent person. But his senior minister, who is responsible for finding money in the portfolio, for making sure, absolutely, that there is funding, is letting his junior minister down by not making sure that they fund aged care.

We've asked about the PBS processes. The straw man that the minister likes to put up—he likes to do the straw man around lung cancer—is a nonsense, again. It's beneath the dignity of this parliament to think about it. This minister is actually doing something very unusual when it comes to PBAC. It's something I've referred to the Audit Office, because it has very serious consequences for the ongoing confidence and sustainability of the PBS. It is something the sector is worried about, and the minister should be concerned that he thinks it's okay.

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