Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

Once again we heard the Minister for Health spending much of his time speaking about the listing of new medicines. The listing of new medicines is nothing new. It has been going on as part of government policy regardless of who is in government for decades. But the minister of course didn't talk about the delays of the listing of the new medicines that he refers to. More importantly, the minister spent his time speaking about the listing of new medicines in order to deflect from his government's failures and his personal failures in managing the health system of Australia—the failure to adequately fund our hospitals, with a $2.8 billion cut between 2019 and 2025; a $715 million cut over this three-year cycle; a failure to adequately fund our health professionals, and that refers directly to the six-year Medicare freeze, which is still going; and a failure to adequately fund medical professionals, such as doctors who do after-hours visits and, in particular, how that affects the residential aged-care facilities of this country. Indeed, the out-of-pocket costs to Australians wanting to see their doctor are increasing. Medicine scripts are not being filled or are being delayed, as are GP visits and doctors visits more broadly. For dentists—and I haven't got time to go into the details—the out-of-pocket costs reached $240 per person last year. In Australia's most disadvantaged communities, over one-quarter of people delay seeing or do not see their dentist. Today we heard of the government wanting to use labour hire staff in Medicare offices—again, a step towards privatising Medicare.

Cuts to public health are intended to do two things: (1) to push people into private health insurance and (2) to push the responsibility onto the public health system of the state governments by sending people to the hospitals. But what we've seen happen with respect to both of those matters is that, with private health insurance, costs have increased to over a thousand dollars more per year per person. We're seeing people dropping their policies because of that. We've also seen the government now delay by one year the introduction of its gold, silver, bronze new private health insurance system because the government knows that proposal will increase the costs and reduce the services that people get from that cover, and it didn't want to introduce that policy just before the next federal election. It wouldn't have been a good look for them to do that.

What we've also seen is elective surgery waiting lists blowing out. In particular in my state—and I understand it's happening in other states as well—we're seeing ambulance ramping. It's happening because people are avoiding going to their doctor and using the state system as an alternative, and it's happening because doctors will not go to residential aged-care facilities, and they've made that clear. Residents of those facilities are then being transferred to the hospitals. I have heard that from people that work directly in the system.

Nowhere are these cuts hurting more than in country Australia, where country people have fewer GPs, less choice, fewer doctors who bulk-bill and higher co-payment rates—not to mention the travel costs they incur. There are seven million people who live in country Australia. We know the chronic disease burden is much greater there and we know that, for them, getting the healthcare they need is much more difficult. Martin Laverty, the CEO of the Royal Flying Doctor Service, talks about the mental health crisis in country Australia—and, again, time does not allow me to talk about that in detail.

Only last night, the member for Macarthur and I, at a function held by the Lung Cancer Foundation, spoke with a person from Mackay, who, over the years, has had multiple surgeries. Her family has had to spend a million dollars for her healthcare needs. When she goes to her GP, each visit costs her about $100 because there is no bulk-billing provided—not to mention the travel costs this person incurs to go to Brisbane every time she needs to get the serious treatment she needs. That is typical of the hardship being faced by country people when it comes to the health services provided by this nation. The facts speak for themselves. Out-of-pocket costs for remote Australians went up to $60.20 in 2017 and, for very remote Australians, to $64.25. That's the government own report figures. For specialists, the out-of-pocket cost for remote Australians is now $81. The figures don't lie. This comes from the government's own Medicare report.

The fact is that a healthy nation is a productive nation. Health care comes at the top of what matters to people most, and the Morrison government, and this minister in particular, have failed to adequately manage Australia's healthcare system.

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