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

I thank my friend the member for Lyons, who joined earlier this year the Prime Minister and many of us at the 40th anniversary of Australia's most important social program, Medicare. Medicare was hard-fought. It was opposed tooth and nail at the time by doctors groups and by the Liberal Party, who, election after election, promised to abolish it. For Labor, bulk-billing was at the heart of our vision for Medicare but, again, that was hard-fought. The AMA instructed its members not to bulk-bill for a long time, and we know John Howard, the Leader of the Opposition at the time, described bulk-billing as 'an absolute rort'. Although we won that fight as well, the truth is, those opposite have maintained their lack of support for bulk-billing right through the intervening years.

The Leader of the Opposition said there were too many free Medicare services and then tried to abolish bulk-billing altogether for everyone. When we blocked that change in the other place, he then kicked off a six-year freeze to the Medicare rebate that ripped billions and billions of dollars out of general practice, causing bulk-billing to wither on the vine. Then, rather than having the courage to own the damage that those opposite had inflicted on Medicare, they tried to fudge the figures, magically producing a bulk-billing figure of 88 per cent on the eve of the last election. The vice president of the college of GPs called them out, describing that 88 per cent figure as 'misleading' and 'significantly skewed'. Shortly after the election, the college president, Dr Price, described the reality this way. She said that bulk-billing was in 'free-fall' and general practice was 'at a tipping point'. So maybe instead of holding up a sign like he did yesterday with this misleading figure scribbled with crayon on it, the Leader of the Opposition might reflect on his own role in creating this utter mess. If he doesn't get it, I'll tell you what: Australia's doctors do. They ranked him as the worst health minister in 35 years in a poll of doctors. The Australian Doctor magazine says, '1,100 doctors took part in the survey,' and it quoted one GP as saying that Mr Dutton 'will be remembered as the dullest, least innovative and most gullible'.

Well, we've got a different approach. We're committed to cleaning up his mess, to strengthening Medicare and to reversing the slide in bulk-billing. In just 12 months, we've delivered 5.4 million additional free visits to the doctor. More doctors, more bulk-billing, more urgent care clinics—that's our approach to strengthening Medicare.

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