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

They either do not know about it or they do not understand. And we have Senator O'Sullivan interjecting again. Well, that gives me the opportunity to bring into play what is happening in regional and rural Australia with health and what the GPs in regional and rural Australia are telling the committee. They are basically saying that they are having huge financial problems, that many doctors will leave because of the government's policies; they will just close up shop and go away and retire. If they are getting towards their later years, they are just going to retire. In Tamworth, which I know very well, as I have been to Tamworth many, many times, the biggest single GP practice, with 15 GPs, is run by Dr Kamerman—not Cameron, but Kamerman, with a K. Dr Kamerman said that they have done the analysis of the effects of this government's policies on their business practice, on their health practice in Tamworth. And what they are saying is that they will have to charge non-concession-cardholders $100 every time they visit the doctor, and they will have to charge concession cardholders $65 each time they visit the doctor, and they will stop bulk-billing.

When you look at national health funding in this country, national health funding has been about encouraging bulk-billing to encourage people who cannot afford to access the doctor to access the doctor. At $100 to go and see a doctor, if Mr and Mrs Smith are crook, and their two kids are crook, they will have to go and get a loan to go and see a doctor in Tamworth. And what have the National Party done?