Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. What actions has the Albanese Labor government taken to make it easier for Australians to see a doctor, why is Medicare bulk-billing fundamental to a strong Medicare and why is the government so determined to strengthen Medicare after a decade of cuts and neglect?

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

Thanks to the member for Robertson for that question. He argued so passionately in this place for Labor's bigger, better tax cuts, which passed the parliament this week and will deliver a tax cut on 1 July to every single one of the 66,000 taxpayers in his electorate—like a third-year registered nurse at the Gosford Hospital, who will receive a tax cut of more than $1,600 or about double what they would have got under the Morrison government plan. He's also a huge supporter of bulk-billing—what we on this side of the House describe as the beating heart of Medicare. We know bulk-billing for GP visits in particular was in freefall when we came to government. The member for Robertson saw the consequences of that every day he worked at the Wyong and Gosford hospitals as an emergency physician because they came in the front door every single day.

But that pressure on bulk-billing that we encountered was no accident. It was a deliberate policy of the former government and, in particular, of the now Leader of the Opposition when he was the health minister. Remember when he was health minister and he famously said there were too many free Medicare services? On Radio National back in August 2014, he said: 'About four out of five services performed by GPs are performed for free, and that is too high.' It is a comment that will send a chill up the spine of every community that has a bulk-billing rate of around four in five for GP services. I think about a few of those communities. One of them is the electorate of Dunkley, with a bulk-billing rate of about four out of five free GP visits every single year. It is a bulk-billing rate that has been increasing.

What is the Leader of the Opposition's plan to reduce the rate of bulk-billing in Dunkley that he regards as too high? Well, we don't have to guess. We have to look at his record because in his first budget he tried to abolish bulk-billing altogether. In his budget gloss, he said this:

From 1 July … previously bulk-billed patients can expect to contribute … towards the cost of standard GP consultations and out-of-hospital pathology and imaging services.

When he couldn't get that through the parliament, he kicked off a years-long freeze to the Medicare rebate that ripped billions and billions of dollars out of general practice. That's not our approach. Our approach tripled the bulk-billing incentive, which increased the rate of bulk-billing in Dunkley. We don't think it's too high. We want to keep it rising. It increased the bulk-billing rate on the Central Coast by 4½ per cent. That's our plan for a stronger Medicare, but all that would be at risk if this man ever got his hands on Medicare again.