Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise today to speak in relation to this important matter of public interest. After hearing from the other side, what is really happening in health in this country is that we are just continuing on from where Tony Abbott gutted health: when he was minister, he took a billion dollars out of health. That is exactly the road we are heading back down when it comes to this government and their policies on health.

I am speaking because I am really concerned about the impact it is going to have on my home state of Tasmania. This short-sighted tax on GP visits, and the medicine price increases, will hit pensioners, low-income families and those with chronic illnesses particularly hard. Let's just remember what Tony Abbott said to the Australian people before the election. He promised his government would be a government of no surprises and no excuses—no new taxes and no cuts to health. That is without the promises and commitments he supposedly gave to the Australian people that there would be no cuts to education and no changes in aged care. We all know what happened when it came to aged care—cutting the supplement for those people with the most chronic forms of dementia in this country. What did they do? They came into this place on 26 June and they cut that supplement without any consultation or discussion with those who provide that invaluable care for the most vulnerable in our community.

It has been proven that every single week over the very long 12 months this government has been in power, they have broken at least one promise. That list of broken promises is continuing. We know that this Prime Minister has ripped up Labor's historic health and hospitals agreement with the states, slashing more than $50 billion out of the public hospitals. He also wants to slap a $7 tax on everyone who visits a GP, everyone who has a pathology test and everyone who has to have an MRI. This equates to a $3.5 billion tax hike on health. It might be fine for those people on the other side to say, 'Well, that's on average $10 or $13 for the Australian people'—but we all know there is no such person as an average person in this country who only spends $10 extra a year on hospitals, or going to visit the GP, or having a prescription filled. The reality, if you get out into the real suburbs of Australia and listen to people, is they will have to make a choice. If they have four children at home and they are all sick—which is generally what happens, because most families are caring and sharing and when they bring something home from school they share it around—what are they going to do? Do they say, 'Okay, the two youngest can go to the doctor, but we cannot afford for the two eldest children to go'. Or, 'We can't send mum or dad along to the doctor because we can't afford it.' That is the reality of life in the real Australia. I ask those people on the other side, those people who represent the electorate of Bass, Braddon and Lyons—the three amigos who are always talking about writing in to save the world—where are they when it comes to standing up for Tasmanian families? Where are they when those people who can least afford it have to make some very tough decisions about filling their prescriptions? They will say that they already know there are people who have gone into pharmacies and said, 'Look, I cannot afford it if this government is going to continue to raise the price of medicines. I just want to know if I really need to take these tablets every day or can I just take them every second day?' That is the reality, because people are really fearful. They are really concerned about what impact this budget is going to have on their health and well-being.

Those opposite can try to trivialise it and say it is $10 a week. When you are a family struggling to make ends meet already, that $10, which we know is not a realistic figure, is very important to your weekly budget. Those on the other side of the chamber have decided this in the interests of a supposed budget crisis. It is really interesting that when the minister was in New Zealand recently, he said that the Australian economy was sound and robust. Yet when he is in this country the government wants to put a tax— (Time expired)