Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Saturday, the Labor members of parliament from the Hunter, Pat Conroy, Sharon Claydon and I, joined with the shadow assistant health minister, Stephen Jones, to lead a Medicare march from the Belmont Medicare office, which the Howard government closed and Labor reopened when they were in power, to the foreshore of Lake Macquarie. Over 500 people were involved in that march. They were saying no to the Abbott government's GP tax, no to cuts to health and no to increased prices for prescriptions. It was a very interesting rally because the shadow minister asked people to put up their hand to say if they had or had not ever been to a rally before, and 80 per cent of the people said they had never attended a rally. The oldest participant in the rally was 96. He had been to a rally before. But there were a 92-year-old and an 87-year-old who had never been to a rally before in their lives. There were young people, families and children. There was so much angst and anger about the proposal to charge a $7 GP tax when people visit the doctor. Never before have I seen people so willing to turn out.

Speakers at the rally included the Mayor of Lake Macquarie, Jodie Harrison, who is going to be the state candidate in the seat of Charlestown; Yasmin Catley, who will be the Labor candidate in the seat of Swansea; Jake Howell, a registered nurse who works in accident and emergency, who expressed his concern about how the GP tax would impact on the accident and emergency department at Belmont hospital; and Deadre Ham, a pensioner, who talked about how she had recently had two knee replacements and how important it was for her to be able to go to a doctor who bulk-billed. Gary Kennedy from Trades Hall also spoke at the rally.

It was really interesting to see the level of community support for this march and rally. I was speaking at a function on Saturday night and I spoke to someone who works in a local business who said that the people just kept coming and coming and coming. Probably one of the most interesting aspects of the rally was that the state Liberal member for Swansea turned up and gave an interview to the local TV station, where he said it was a bad decision and that he and the New South Wales state Liberal government oppose a GP tax.