Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

The Health Legislation Amendment (Improved Medicare Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2024 implements a number of public health measures intended to protect the integrity of Medicare, enhance the regulation of goods under the therapeutic goods act and make minor amendments to the tobacco act. A number of these amendments form part of the response to recommendations of the Independent Review of Medicare Integrity and Compliance undertaken by Dr Pradeep Philip.

The Philip review identified a range of issues impacting the effective administration of health benefits schemes, including the Medicare Benefits Schedule, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Child Dental Benefits Schedule. As such, this bill is seeking to address some of the issues inhibiting the ability of the Department of Health and Aged Care to conduct efficient, timely and effective compliance activities. Given the widespread implications of this bill, the coalition will seek further scrutiny of its effect and implications through a Senate inquiry. While we support measures to strengthen the effective administration of Australia's important health benefits schemes, we want to ensure there are no unintended negative consequences created by this bill for Australia's hardworking healthcare professionals.

It's also important to note during this discussion about Medicare integrity the Albanese Labor government's concerning record on Medicare to date. Labor went to the last election promising Australians they would strengthen Medicare, but over the last three years Medicare has only been weakened. GP bulk-billing has fallen 11 per cent under the Albanese government to 77 per cent, whilst Australians are now paying the highest out-of-pocket costs on record.

To put this in perspective, the GP bulk-billing rate rose under Peter Dutton as health minister to 84 per cent. It continued to rise under the former coalition government to 88 per cent, before we left office. Again, it is now 77 per cent under Mark Butler and Anthony Albanese. In fact, Australians are now covering 45 per cent more of the cost to see a doctor from their own pocket under this government, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. This is forcing Australians to make the difficult decision between paying the bills and seeing their doctor.

We know that 1.5 million Australians avoided going to a GP in 2023-24 due to cost concerns. That is a direct result of this government's mismanagement—its mismanagement of our economy and its mismanagement of Australia's health workforce crisis—which has meant that it has literally never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor. We know that this is only putting further pressure on Australia's struggling hospital system as Labor's primary care crisis pushes patients towards emergency departments. On the other hand, the coalition has put forward our plan to grow a strong pipeline of homegrown GPs and safeguard Australians' healthcare access.

An elected Dutton coalition government will invest $400 million to provide junior doctors with direct financial incentive payments, assistance with leave entitlements and support for prevocational training. This will ensure junior doctors who pursue training as a GP in the community are not financially worse off compared to doctors who remain in the hospital environment. We understand that a strong pipeline of home-trained GP graduates is critical to delivering essential health care to all Australians, and we are focused on further ways to ensure that all Australians have timely and affordable access to a doctor.

So, once again, the coalition supports the bill's aim to improve compliance activities in Australia's health benefits schemes. However, we condemn this government's concerning record on Medicare. That is why I will be moving a second reading amendment noting that Australians' access to affordable health care has only gone backwards under the Albanese Labor government, and it has never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor.

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