Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in this matter of public importance debate on the impact of the Abbott government's GP tax and medicine price hike on pensioners, the poor and the chronically ill. There is no doubt that the Abbott government's GP tax and medicine price hike will have a profound effect on the lives of many vulnerable Australians. I want to first note today media reports that the Prime Minister is planning 'refinements' to his terrible $7 GP tax. According to David Crowe in The Australiannewspaper today:

THE federal government is preparing to give ground in one of the most heated fights over its budget reforms as Tony Abbott tells his colleagues to expect “refinements” to the $7 fee on visits to the doctor.

The Prime Minister has signalled the plan in private talks with Coalition MPs amid pressure from crossbench senators for drastic changes to the medical co-payment meant to generate $3.5 billion in revenue over the next four years.

No amount of refinement will fix this rotten GP tax. This plan must be abandoned. The GP tax is cruel and unfair. It is bad health policy. Taxing sick people to see the doctor will prevent them from visiting the doctor when they need to and that will lead to them suffering more serious and costly health problems.

When this tax was first announced I was inundated with emails, phone calls and letters from people voicing their anger and frustration at this tax, as I am sure many senators and members in this place would have as well. It was clear that the GP tax and increase in the cost of medicines would force many people to have to decide between paying their rent and going to the doctor. For many it would be a choice between putting food on the table and filling their prescription.

It was not just people who were already struggling who wrote to me. Even those who told me that they were well-off could not believe that people who were already disadvantaged were being singled out with the new tax that undermines our universal health system. They understood what this tax and increase in the cost of medicines would mean to pensioners, families and the chronically ill. The question they asked me and the one I repeat today is: how will pensioners and those who are chronically ill afford the government's new $7 GP tax? This new tax shows just how out of touch this government is with the health needs of Australians. When people are already struggling to make ends meet how will they pay more not only to go to the doctor but also for every prescription they have to fill? Many people who are chronically ill take several medications a day and the cost to them will quickly add up.

I note the report of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee inquiry into out-of-pocket expenses released recently clearly shows that Tasmania would be hardest hit by this terrible new GP tax. The President of the Australian Medical Association, Associate Professor Brian Owler, told the inquiry:

Tasmania has a higher burden of chronic disease and higher smoking rates, and we need to do more to encourage preventive health care and chronic disease management. That is why I think the co-payment is probably going to affect Tasmanians more than it affects people in other jurisdictions.

This $7 GP tax will make it so much harder for Tasmanians who are sick. Many will put off going to the doctor and their medical conditions may worsen. The 2013 state government health indicators report found that 16 per cent of low-income Tasmanians have difficulty accessing GPs, with cost one of the key barriers. According to the Department of Health and Human Services in Tasmania, in the period between 2009 and 2011 an estimated 13,000 Tasmanians in the lowest income range ended up having to be treated in hospital for conditions that could have been addressed at the primary care level.

The GP tax will put even more pressure on our public hospital emergency departments and elective surgery waiting lists. Despite the Prime Minister promising no cuts to health, this budget will rip $1.1 billion out of Tasmania's hospitals over the next decade. In this budget cycle alone, funding for Tasmanian hospitals has been cut by $49 million over the next four years. The Royal Hobart Hospital is already under pressure in its emergency department. It was reported in the Mercury newspaper yesterday that a three-year-old boy with severe breathing problems was stuck in an ambulance for 1½ hours while he waited for treatment. According to the newspaper reports, there were no beds available at the hospital. The report said that when the boy's breathing deteriorated the paramedics hit the alarm button to get him seen to.

Labor do not want to make it harder for people who are sick and put more pressure on hospitals that are already under pressure. We do not want pensioners and the vulnerable attacked. Even some government MPs do not support this terrible tax. The member for Braddon, Mr Brett Whiteley, acknowledged in his local paper, though very belatedly, that the GP tax should be scrapped for pensioners and people with chronic illness.

I am surprised that it took him three months to realise that this terrible tax would hurt Tasmanians and especially pensioners and people with chronic illnesses. It seems to me that his new-found concern about the tax was more about saving his own job than a genuine concern about sick people. In Mr Whiteley's own electorate youth unemployment is over 20 per cent, and I ask Mr Whiteley: why should young unemployed people have to pay this unfair new GP tax to go to the doctor? We know from research from the Brotherhood of St Lawrence released recently that underemployment of young Australians has hit its highest level in 40 years.

But it is not just taxing sick people to go to the doctor; in the budget this government also announced an increase in the cost of PBS medicines by 13 per cent on top of inflation by 1 January 2015. This is another 80c for pensioners on the cost of prescriptions for some of the most disadvantaged Australians, including people on full-rate pensions—the people who can least afford this increase. For the benefit of the Senate, people on full-rate pensions receive about $20,000 per annum. It will be an extra $5 for people who are not pensioners but who also may struggle to find the extra $7 to go to the doctors and then on top of that an extra $5 for a prescription.

Evidence to the Senate Community Affairs Committee inquiry into the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2014 made it clear that these increases to the PBS would target pensioners and low- and middle-income earners. The Consumer Health Forum provided the committee with evidence of more patients not filling their prescriptions due to cost. The Senate report into the PBS price hikes confirmed that those hardest hit by the increase in medicines will be the sick and chronically ill. The committee found that:

… very high users will pay $145.30 extra per single, couple or family per year to reach the general patient safety net.

In a damning indictment the committee reported:

Some submitters questioned whether the increases in co-payments may result in unintended consequences due to the inability of some patients to fill their prescriptions due to rising costs. Submitters expressed concern that this may result in severe health consequences for vulnerable patients and increased health expenditure in the longer term as well as consequences for the pharmaceutical sector.

The Australian Medical Association told the Senate inquiry that the international research shows that increases in co-payments lead to poor adherence to prescriptions, which would cost taxpayers and the government more in the longer term.

Pensioners and people who are on low incomes and who live with chronic illness rely on bulk-billing and they should not have to pay more for their medicines. They must be spared this harsh and unfair $7 GP tax; they must be spared an increase in the cost of their medicines. The GP tax and the hike in the cost of medicines are an outrageous attack on pensioners, poor people and those who are chronically ill. Both taxes will add to their stress and anxiety. They will compound the disadvantage they already suffer. They are an outrageous attack on our universal health system. Labor will not stand by and see Medicare dismantled. Labor will never support a two-tiered, American-style health system. (Time expired)