Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

If there is one line that sums up Labor's budget it is this: Labor robs regions to buy votes in the cities. Here is one example: the Treasury committed $70 million over four years 'to remove the barriers to accessing Medicare rebates for MRI machines in metropolitan areas to reduce waiting times and costs for patients'. Why not provide MRI Medicare rebates to all regions, especially regional Australia, that need them the most? Labor is playing political games with people's health, and pork-barrelling city electorates. Rural, regional and remote people have to travel longer distances for scans and treatment and consequently have poorer health outcomes, yet Labor is preferencing city seats with greater MRI access. It is a rinse and repeat of Labor's 2022 reversal of the distribution priority areas for international medical graduates—again, robbing regions of desperately needed services. There is talk of an early election. Well, I say, bring it on. Regional Australians need a change of government to a coalition government that will fix the regional health catastrophe.

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