Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Mental Health) Share this | Hansard source

( 'I am making a solemn commitment, an unequivocal commitment, that every element of Medicare's services will continue to be delivered by government. Full stop.' Those on the other side might want to remember who said that. That was former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, and he said it before the last federal election. Of course they were trying to privatise Medicare, the IT systems of Medicare. Australians didn't believe them then and they don't believe them now.

We've got the latest attempt: in Hobart in the Medicare office on Monday, we have 12 labour hire staff coming in to do jobs of federal public servants. These are government jobs that should be done by government employees, that that side of politics promised would be done by government employees but that will not be come Monday. It is an outrage. This is the beginning of the privatisation of Medicare by stealth again by those opposite. They can never be believed when it comes to Medicare. It is only Labor that will ever protect Medicare. Clearly this government cannot be trusted with Medicare. It cannot be trusted with Medicare now. It can never be trusted with Medicare, because we know every time we think everything's going okay, they'll try through another door to make another attempt to privatise Medicare.

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