Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. A health department document reveals that his GP freeze stays until 2020 for chronic disease health assessments. Why is the Prime Minister making Australians who have chronic diseases, like diabetes, pay more to get the treatment they need?

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

I thank the honourable member for her question. The government is committed to restoring indexation in accordance with the timetable that was set out in the budget and, as the minister has described, was agreed to with the AMA and the College of General Practitioners. That is our commitment, and we have undertaken that. We are doing so affordably, and we are delivering on our commitment to guarantee Medicare, to fully fund Medicare, to guarantee it—to actually put the money for Medicare and the PBS in a locked box every year. That is the strength of our commitment. Also, as the honourable member would know—and she would have many constituents in her electorate who are beneficiaries of this—there is the listing of new life-saving drugs on the PBS. She should ask herself how it is that during the term of this government we have listed 1,400 new medicines on the PBS. In the term of the last three years of the last Labor government, it was only 331.

That is the big difference. That means lives saved, lives improved, quality of life restored, families kept whole. That is our commitment to public health. We are delivering; we are honouring our commitment. I thank the honourable member for her question, but the premise is unfounded. We are committed. We are more than committed. We are guaranteeing Medicare and the PBS.