Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

The National Health Funding Body report for 2013-14 is a very important report in the context of what is happening in health in this country. As a member of the Select Committee on Health, looking at the issues that are affecting ordinary Australians'—and some of the poorest Australians'—access to health, this is a very important issue. And what we have seen and what we have been hearing in relation to funding for health is that unless there is a change to the funding models proposed by this incompetent government then the medical profession's business model will no longer be sustainable. We hear so much from the other side about the sustainability of small business. Yet one of the areas they do not have a clue about is how doctors maintain their small business—because they are a small business, as they keep telling the inquiry. And they say that the imposition of a $7 co-payment, or the imposition of a $5 co-payment, or the imposition of a further extension of the freeze on indexation to their payments, means that their business model is unsustainable. This is a government that claims to understand small business, yet they do not understand the key issues for one of the most important small businesses in the country—the small businesses that keep this population healthy.