Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the terrific member for Aston for that question. We're joined in the chamber today by a delegation of nurses here celebrating primary health care nurses day. They are nurses working in general practice, working in other primary care settings, and I welcome them to the chamber.

There are about 75,000 primary care nurses in Australia, and under Labor every single one of them will receive a tax cut on 1 July. The member for Aston also reminds us that this month we celebrate the 40th birthday of the most important social program in Australia, Medicare. Before that day, 40 years ago, one in seven Australians didn't have health coverage, and unpaid medical bills was the leading cause of personal bankruptcies in this country. But all of that changed overnight. Thanks to that landmark Labor reform we now live in a country that has a healthcare system that is number one in the world when it comes to health outcomes and when it comes to equity.

But as I have said on many occasions, it is a system under pressure. I said yesterday bulk-billing rates, particularly for visits to the GP, were in free fall when we came to government. That's why the Treasurer tripled the bulk-billing incentive in last year's budget. That's not only stopped the slide in bulk billing rates; in the first two months we saw 360,000 additional free visits to the doctor, which I have talked about a bit last week.

I wasn't the only one out last week talking about bulk billing. Surprisingly, the Leader of the Opposition also broke cover and, apparently with a straight face, said on Tasmanian radio this: 'When I was health minister bulk billing was at 84 per cent. They're well and truly below that now.' Good on him for acknowledging the inheritance that his predecessor as health minister, the member for Sydney, left him, but perhaps he could have explained a little more clearly for those listeners in Tasmania what he did with those bulk billing rates. Perhaps he could have reminded them—

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