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

It is not nonsense, Senator O'Sullivan. It is not nonsense. Get out there. Listen. Listen to the people who use pathology. Listen to the sector. It is not nonsense. This is what you did. You have ripped $2.1 billion out of diagnostic imaging and pathology, and you are gutting crucial health workforce training programs. That is what is happening out there. I know you have been away; you might not have caught up. But that is what is happening.

That cut just builds on the $60 billion in health cuts—health cuts they said they would not do—made by the Abbott government, cuts which have been gleefully adopted by the Turnbull government. It is clear that, regardless of who the leader of the coalition is, our health system is at risk under the coalition. Our hospitals are at risk under the coalition. Patients are at risk under the coalition. And, under the coalition, Medicare will always be at risk because the Liberal government believe that your access to quality health care should be determined by your ability to pay.

The Liberal government would also happily see your ability to pay determine your access to education. Before the election, again, it was 'no cuts to education', a 'unity ticket' on Gonski, but what we saw when they came into government was $30 billion ripped from our schools. Different salesman, same policies. (Time expired)