Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Dr Jones said: 'Mount Barker has grown immensely. The population needs support. As a business owner partnered with three sites—Mount Barker, Goolwa and Victor Harbour—it is difficult for our clients without an MRI licence.' He went on to say, 'Labor and Rebekha Sharkie have both recognised this and promised a licence to Mount Barker.' They have promised a licence to Mount Barker, the private provider which provides services in town—that is not a good look for somebody who just made a false claim before this House.

But he's not the only one. There was the Leader of the Opposition this morning on Adelaide radio. I'm just dealing with the false claims that we've already heard. The Leader of the Opposition on Adelaide radio this morning said: 'When Labor was in office, the decisions were made under the same process. The difference is that Labor awarded these licences to public hospitals. That went through processes.' In question time I named just a sample, but I can run through even more, whether it's Sunshine Coast Radiology, Queensland X-Ray, Qscan Redcliffe or CitiScan Radiology. These are all private. There's I-MED in Hurstville, Queensland. In South Australia there's Benson Radiology in Salisbury and Benson Radiology in North Adelaide. We had Dr Jones's partners in South Terrace, Adelaide. We had Adelaide diagnostic imaging in Menindee, Adelaide diagnostic imaging in Woodville and Dr Jones's partner Tennyson Centre in Kurralta Park. All of these are private.

Mr Albanese interjecting—

The Leader of the Opposition attempted to say across the table, 'No, I was talking about what he promised this time.' Well, he was wrong about this time and when he said this morning that he was referring specifically to when Labor was in office. That's what he said on the public record and that's what his own transcript shows. What all this means is that Labor makes stuff up in this place.

But let's go to the essential questions here. On our health record compared with Labor's, let me start with a fundamental point that was made by them. The shadow minister talked about people's access to doctors. Guess what? The bulk-billing rate for people to be able to go to the doctor for free is up from 82 per cent under the previous government to 86 per cent under us. That means more people than ever before, not just in numbers but as a percentage of services, are accessing a doctor without having to pay anything. There were 133 million free GP services delivered in the last year—27 million more than in Labor's last year. So they're the facts. It's not just an increase in numbers but an increase in the percentage of Australians who are able to attend the doctor for free.

In terms of hospital funding, this is very interesting. We have seen an increase in federal hospital funding from $13.3 billion under Labor in 2012-31 to $23 billion to $24 billion to $25 billion to $26 billion during the course of this budget cycle. Most significantly, I had a look at Labor's costings, conveniently put out by the now shadow minister for health, the previous shadow Treasurer. We remember that one. He said, 'If you don't like it, don't vote for it,' and they didn't. It was a very, very helpful intervention, may I say. There were two things to really talk about. I wanted to talk about Medicare. I went to Labor's costings and it was very interesting. On ending the Medicare freeze, here are Labor's costings. I looked in the columns as to how much they had for this because I thought we'd done that. In 2019-20, there were zero dollars. In 2020-21, there were zero dollars. In 2021-22, there was were dollars. The total was zero. They actually said they were ending the Medicare freeze and then put zero dollars in their costings. My advice would be that, if you are going to do that, you probably don't want to pretend you are ending something and then allocating nothing.

The other thing, of course, is: what did this set of costings show in relation to additional funding for hospitals? It had nothing under the target of 50 per cent that they talk about—nothing for the current agreement, which ends in 2020. When you go to Labor's costings, there is nothing in terms of the additional hospital funding under the National Health Reform Agreement. There is nothing for those out-years through the entire next five-year agreement. But nor was there anything in the budget allocated for the five years beyond that. Out to 2030, their costings, this gentleman, this member of parliament, had zero. So for ending the Medicare freeze he had zero, zero, zero, zero. We'll call him Audi! On their side, there was not just one year, but 11 years of nothing in the costings for additional hospital funding under the National Health Reform Agreement. That is almost a world record in terms of achievements. Under us, we have an extra $30 billion over the course of the current agreement. That is real funding that will deliver real outcomes for the states. And that will mean increased opportunities for people to have services in hospitals, on top of the record GP bulk-billing.

But then we come to medicines. Medicines is an area of particular shame for the ALP. Under us, one of the signatures of our government has been the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. We have listed over 2,100 new or amended medicines. Of most significance is the commitment to list everything that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee recommends. I go to the 2011 Labor budget because, helpfully, they put their policy in the budget. It says that, due to fiscal circumstances, the listing of some medicines will be deferred until fiscal circumstances permit. That includes medicines to treat the formation of blood clots, to treat deep vein thrombosis; severe asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; endometriosis and in-vitro fertilisation; and schizophrenia. All of these things have occurred as a moment of shame.

Opposition members interjecting—

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