Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How are the Albanese Labor government's investments to strengthen Medicare improving GP bulk-billing rates, 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

I thank the member for Bendigo for her question. It's a timely question to ask about the decade of cuts and neglect, because yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the famous 2014 budget. I'm sure all of those opposite were out there celebrating—remembering, of course, that, once the thick plumes of smoke from Joe Hockey and Mathias Cormann's famous budget cigars had finally cleared the air around Parliament House, the scale of the cuts to basic government services became clear to every Australian. At its heart was the worst health budget in Australian history, delivered by the worst health minister in the Medicare era. That same health minister had said that there were 'too many free Medicare services', so he tried to abolish bulk-billing altogether. He tried to make every single Australian pay a fee every single time they visited the doctor. He tried to slash public hospital funding by $50 billion and to jack up the price of medicines by up to $5 a script.

Our approach to health budgets could not be more different. Our budgets have made medicines cheaper—not dearer but cheaper, saving Australians hundreds of millions of dollars already. We're going to put more funding into our crucial public hospitals, not less—not $50 billion less, like the Leader of the Opposition would have done. And, for Labor, bulk-billing is the beating heart of Medicare. That's why the centrepiece of last year's budget was a $3.5 billion investment to triple the bulk-billing incentive for GP visits. In just the first five months, that has delivered more than 950,000 additional free visits to the doctor. In the member for Bendigo's electorate, the bulk-billing rate for GP visits has climbed by almost eight per cent in just five months, delivering 25,600 additional free visits to the doctor—one of the best results in the country and a reflection of the hard work by the member for Bendigo in trumpeting the benefits of our strengthening Medicare agenda in her electorate.

We promised the Australian people that we would strengthen Medicare and we would make medicines cheaper, and we are doing that. In 2013, those opposite promised there would be no cuts to health, and the Leader of the Opposition delivered the exact opposite.