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

Unfortunately for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the world was not created on 21 May 2022. We inherited a Medicare system that had been deeply impacted by a decade of cuts and neglect. I said very openly that bulk-billing was continuing to slide, which is why we put, in the last budget in 2023, a record investment to turn bulk-billing around. I said that would not happen quickly. I was very honest about that. I was also more transparent with the Australian people about what was really happening in bulk-billing by starting to report how many visits to general practice were bulk-billed every single month. Those opposite never reported that. They cloaked and disguised their bulk-billing data in these one-off COVID data—these tens of millions of COVID—

See this speech in context