Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, my question is to the Prime Minister. Given it is the first chaotic day of the Prime Minister's marathon election campaign, Australians want to know: will the Prime Minister abandon his cuts to pathology that will make it more expensive for Australians suffering from cancer to get blood tests?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If every day between now and the election can be as successful as yesterday, it will be a very, very good time up to the election. There is something distinctly Orwellian about the Labor Party's line that somehow or another everything is going very well when their Transport Workers Union's Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which at the Labor Party's instruction had—

Mr Ewen Jones interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Herbert will cease interjecting, and he will cease blaming the member for Braddon! The member for Ballarat on a point of order?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It was a very serious question about cancer patients and the pathology cuts that are in your budget—a serious question!

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat will resume her seat. The member for Ballarat, in seeking the call for a point of order, must state the point of order, not give a speech. Prime Minister, have you concluded your answer?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I invite the Minister for Health to complete the answer.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a delight to take a question from the opposition. It does not have one single health policy. I thought health was important to the Labor Party, but it does not have one single health policy.

The Leader of the Opposition is skipping around the country visiting the laboratories of a listed multinational company, whose profit has increased 500 per cent since 2000, while also claiming to protect the vulnerable. My question back to the Leader of the Opposition, and back to the shadow minister for health, is: can they reassure the patients of Australia that the Medicare rebate for every single pathology item remains unchanged, and, indeed, under review with the MBS task force?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you going to cut pathology tests or not?

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs has been warned on a number of occasions. He will leave under 94(a).

The member for Isaacs then left the chamber.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have said is that the bulk-billing incentive of between $1 and $3 per test, introduced by Labor to raise the rate of bulk-billing, which did not raise the rate of bulk-billing at all—

Ms King interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ballarat is now warned!

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

will be removed as a save. And if those listed multinational pathology companies want to claim that that will cause $30 in additional costs per test, and the Leader of the Opposition wants to believe them, then shame on him.

This is a Labor Party with not one single health policy, but I remind members opposite that the sensible save that the government made in MYEFO last year allowed us to make the biggest ever listing on the PBS, which was $1 billion worth of medicines to treat hepatitis C—$1 billion worth of medicines to cure hep C within a generation. We are the only jurisdiction in the world to do that.

We are a government that is running budget deficits, not budget surpluses, thanks to the mess that was left us by the Labor Party. So in taking a rational, sensible, serious approach, it made sense to remove a small bulk-billing incentive, not the Medicare rebate, and to invest in the future health of the nation.