Mark Baker (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister inform the House of the latest GP bulk-billing figures, particularly in Tasmania? How have government initiatives contributed to this improvement, and is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Braddon for his question, and I note that on the most recent figures the bulk-billing rate in his electorate has increased by 25.2 percentage points since December 2003. Now, let me be clear: bulk-billing—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister has the call.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

is not the be-all and end-all of Medicare, but it is important. It should be widely available, particularly to children and pensioners, and that is just what has happened thanks to the policies of the Howard government. The latest Medicare statistics came out last Friday and they show that in the December quarter the national bulk-billing rate had gone up to 77.1 per cent. That is 10.6 percentage points more than in December 2003. It is the 12th consecutive quarterly increase in the GP bulk-billing rates.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What happened in the seven years before 2003?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At 84.3 per cent, the bulk-billing rate for children is at an all-time high.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Bevis interjecting

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At 71.9 per cent, the bulk-billing rate in country areas is at an all-time high. I am pleased to say to the interjecting member for Brisbane that the bulk-billing rate has increased in every state and territory over the last two years but most of all in Tasmania, where the bulk-billing rate is up 22.6 percentage points since December 2003. Results like these mean that Medicare is safe with the Howard government. They mean that the Howard government is the best friend that Medicare has ever had.

I was asked about alternative policies. On the weekend, we had the Leader of the Opposition boasting about the big job he once had as director-general of the cabinet office in Queensland. He said:

At that level, you provide a lot of advice on key questions which go to the very core of what governments do—with schools policy, with hospitals policy and the rest.

I was very interested in that, because in 1995—after the Leader of the Opposition had been running Queensland for six years, he thinks—a survey showed that 61 per cent of Queenslanders said their hospital system was in crisis. Six years of Kevin Rudd and 61 per cent of Queenslanders think their public hospital system is in crisis. Well, there is a clear message in all of this: don’t let Kevin Rudd do to Medicare what he did to Queensland’s public hospitals.