Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. After a decade of cuts and neglect, what are the Albanese Labor government 's plans to strengthen and protect Medicare?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to get that question from my friend the member for Werriwa, because the Labor Party have no prouder legacy than our contribution to universal health coverage in this country, particularly through the twin pillars of the PBS and Medicare, great Labor initiatives opposed vigorously by the Liberal Party at the time—in Medicare's case, literally for decades. Who can forget the father of the modern Liberal Party, John Howard, with a straight face describing Medicare as one of the great failures of the Hawke government? That is why it has been the duty of every incoming health minister of the Labor Party—Doug Everingham, Neal Blewett, Nicola Roxon—to confront and clean up the mess left by their Liberal Party predecessors, and it's exactly the same this time.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wannon will leave the chamber under 94(a).

The member for Wannon then left the chamber.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After nine long years of neglect and cuts to Medicare, it has never been harder or more expensive to see a doctor than it is right now, because, after the now Leader of the Opposition failed to get his GP tax through the parliament—a tax that would have ended bulk-billing forever and for everyone—he imposed a freeze on the MBS rebate for six long years, a freeze that has baked in an ongoing cut to Medicare of more than $500 million each and every year. No wonder gap fees skyrocketed under this government.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Point of order on relevance. It's a minute and 30 seconds, and there was nothing asked about alternative policies. He spent a minute and 30 seconds talking about us.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Petrie, you're continually raising wrong points of order. The minister was asked, 'After a decade of neglect, what are the government's plans for health and aged care?' That means he's referring to what happened over the last 10 years.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No wonder the average gap fee to see a GP now, for the first time in Medicare's history, is more than the Medicare rebate itself, and no wonder junior doctors are walking away from general practice in droves. Just as every new Labor government had to do, we will clean up this mess because there is no higher priority for Labor than a strong Medicare system.

That's why we're already working with state governments to deliver our 50 urgent care clinics, which will make it easier to see a doctor and take pressure off our hospitals. Tomorrow I will chair the first meeting of the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce to advise the government on our $750 million commitment to deliver on the primary care sector's plan for better primary care delivered to patients when and where they need it. We'll slash the price of medicine for millions of general patients. We're expanding the Aboriginal health workforce, as well as services for dialysis and rheumatic heart disease. We'll introduce world-best screening programs for our precious newborn babies, and we'll fund upgrades to the thousands of general practices that worked so hard to keep us safe over the last 2½ years. After nine long years of neglect and cuts, there is much to do to strengthen and protect our Medicare system, and finally Australia has a government with a plan to do it.