Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. One in three big corporations in this country pays no tax—$0 tax. But meanwhile, people can't afford basics like going to the dentist. Why does a nurse from Coburg North pay more tax than a multinational corporation? Why won't you make big corporations pay tax to get dental into Medicare so that in this wealthy country of ours everyone can get the health care they need?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Melbourne for his question that goes to tax policy but also goes to health policy. On tax policy, in spite of his general observation, the truth is that many big companies do pay considerable amounts of tax with revenue that is then used to fund health and education. But one of the things that we did around about this time last year—and the member for Melbourne will recall those opposite saying that they would oppose it absolutely, and then they would roll it back before they said that we should call an election at this time last year, even though actually the Constitution doesn't allow that to happen, but we won't worry about that! They said we should call an election. They were so hostile to nurses and other workers benefiting. What we did was take the tax cuts that were primarily aimed at the top end and redistributed those to people on low incomes, but it was targeted particularly at Middle Australia, because we understood that they were under financial pressure. We delivered the change through this parliament, and those opposite don't talk about that anymore. They said they would reverse it and reinstate those tax cuts for the high end, and we await a policy at some stage, apart from their free lunch policy, and we await the costings of them, apart from their nuclear policy.

But I'm asked also about health care. We understand that provision of health care and universal health care are so important. That is why we tripled the bulk-billing incentive. That is why we've opened 87 urgent care clinics. That is why we're concentrating on what our system is, which is primarily responsible for primary health care. It's because we understand that that's the way as well that you take pressure off emergency departments and enable people to get the health care that they need. And that stands in stark contrast to the record of the Leader of the Opposition who, of course, wanted a GP tax every time people visited a doctor, wanted a tax every time people visited a hospital and ripped $50 billion out of the hospital system. We on this side of the House will always look to do more when it comes to health care. We will look at sensible ways of being able to move forward, because we understand how important that is, and it's one of the great divides in Australian politics. On the weekend, we celebrated the 41st birthday of Medicare, proudly created by Labor, always strengthened by Labor. Those opposite— (Time expired)