Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is no money because they have actually spent money on absolutely the wrong things. They have ripped money hand over fist out of health. They cannot help themselves. Many people would be well and truly aware of the incredible impact that the changes that this government have been pushing for in diagnostic imaging and pathology services are having on the community. People are scared to death—and perhaps that is not too much of a stretch. They are scared because of the growing cost of getting the basic services that they need to look after their bodies.

We know that people with chronic illness or people who need tests for cancer or breast screening, or tests on a regular basis to manage their diabetes or their mental illness in this new 'streamlined' world that we are hearing about from this government are incredibly anxious. In the last couple of weeks, I have had almost 2,000 emails from people saying, 'Please stop this government from attacking the bulk-billing incentive in pathology labs.'

I want to put on the record the fact there is a very different view between the Liberal-National Party and the Labor Party about people getting access to essential services, particularly essential health services. As a senator for New South Wales with my office in the seat of Robertson, I was very pleased, along with two Labor candidates—Anne Charleton, Labor's candidate for the seat of Robertson, and Emma McBride, our candidate for the seat of Dobell—to welcome Mr Shorten to the Central Coast. When Mr Shorten arrived, we did a tour of the pathology lab in Gosford, which is about an hour and a half north of Sydney.

This pathology lab provides an opportunity for real-time testing of samples so that the hospital next door can get the pathology results and do the operation and respond appropriately in real time. That can only happen because that pathology lab is active and working on the Central Coast right near the hospital. It is a small region with only about 350,000 people. It is a great region, nonetheless it is a regional centre. Over 1,500 pieces of pathology action are taken every single day at that lab for our direct and local community. It employs eight to 10 people on a regular basis with great jobs.

Mr Shorten said, 'What the bulk-billing incentive does is provide just enough money which allows the pathology centres to be able to let people be bulk-billed for vital tests, including diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and other chronic diseases. It is about providing bulk-billing for patients who need cancer treatment for leukaemia.'

When we were in the lab that day, I saw a blood sample of a local young person who has acute lymphatic leukaemia. We looked down the microscope and we saw it. That diagnosis is absolutely essential. When I looked at the sample, I could not tell if that blood came from a rich person, a poor person, a black person or a white person; it was just blood cells—blood cells that needed analysis and blood cells that are being analysed in a fair and equitable way under the current system. But that system is under incredible pressure and is just about to be pulled away.

I was very well informed by Dr Stephen Fairy, a representative from Sonic Healthcare. He explained about the way the government are currently using statistics around diabetes testing, which really misrepresent what is going on. The scale of diabetes in our community is not registering on the Medicare items that are related to diabetes. That is because there is a thing called 'coning' in Medicare that prevents overuse of the system. When our doctors order a full blood count and we go off and have our blood taken, the top three items will be charged but not the following parts of the doctor's order. So many of the items at the bottom, including the diabetes testing, which costs about $10 per item, are actually done for free as part of a job lot, every time somebody gets a full blood count done that has more than three items. So there is no fat in the system. This is what Mr Ferry had to say: 'Pathology is so critical that without pathology medical practice would be almost impossible. Laboratories like the one we have seen today perform thousands of tests every day, providing results to doctors and hospitals that allow them to diagnose and treat patients with a variety of medical conditions, including cancer and chronic diseases like diabetes.'

We are fortunate in Australia because our pathology laboratories are among the best in the world in terms of quality, safety and efficiency. What is more, 98 per cent of all pathology services provided outside of hospitals are currently bulk-billed. If the proposed fee cuts come into effect, that will change. The Medicare fees that allow pathology companies to bulk-bill are absolutely vital. The pathology industry has absorbed fee cuts for many, many years, but now with intense cost pressures that is no longer possible. Many of our laboratories are financially stressed. Mr Ferry said—and I think about what this means for the people I live and work with—that if that laboratory goes from the Central Coast, the people who are in having operations will no longer be able to get real-time analysis. If somebody has an operation where they might have their lung being checked and the doctor is able to get an analysis and do a treatment straightaway for some sort of cancer, there is only one operation involved. But this government knows better. They believe that it is okay to put a barrier between people and the health-seeking behaviours that they have been encouraged to undertake. Labor has built a culture in this country that it is good to prevent ill health, that it is great to seek assistance, that it is a good thing to go and get your blood checked, to manage your diabetes, to manage your mental illness, to keep your medication levels right. Labor believes that, and we made sure that funding was in place to ensure the best possible health outcomes for people.

I am really concerned about with the failure of this government to answer this important question. I have described some of the things that we know this government are doing. What they are hiding is more that they do not want us to see, that they are refusing to give us an answer on. There is this culture of silence. It seems to be endemic in the Liberal-National Party. I said yesterday when I spoke on a matter related to this that, in the great state of New South Wales, under the leadership of Premier Baird, we have two very different views about fighting for fairness for the state between two ministers. We have an education minister, Minister Piccoli, who has actually been able to stand up to this federal government and say, 'Give us the money that you took out of education. Give us your 5 and 6 of the Gonski funding. Don't leave us without the money. Give it to New South Wales.' He is fighting for it. In contrast, the health minister for New South Wales, Minister Skinner, has gone AWOL—absolutely missing in action. We cannot find her on the record, at all, saying anything to the federal government about the cuts that have been inflicted on the state of New South Wales. Let me tell you: it is the worst of the whole country. If we break it down, using the best evidence that we have from the Parliamentary Budget Office, we see that $17.7 billion has been ripped out of New South Wales, with barely a word of complaint from the minister for health in New South Wales. Indeed, on every occasion when she has been invited to come and put the case for New South Wales on the public record, to help us get the information to stand up for the people of New South Wales in this parliament, she has been missing in action. I repeat my invitation for the minister to come and give evidence to Senate Select Committee on Health and put on the record just how much Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Joe Hockey and Scott Morrison have decided to take away from the great state of New South Wales and the health budget that we are entitled to.

In Queensland $10.8 billion has gone, in the Australian Capital Territory it is $1.7 billion and in Victoria it is $13.5 billion. In Victoria, where we did have the health ministry come and speak to us, we have had it put on the record and it is in The Age, where it says, 'federal funding cuts to Victoria's health system over the next decade equate to closing down two major institutions.' That is what the Victorians put on the record: a massive cut to their budget. In Tasmania it is $1.2 billion, in South Australia it is $4.2 billion, in the Northern Territory it is $0.8 billion, and in Western Australia it is $6.5 billion. These are the real cuts and they are written into the budget. This government actually put those numbers in the budget, but they continue to deny that they have cut funding from health. And that is why it is of great concern that this minister has chosen not to bring in her homework and not to show the tardy and disgraceful piece of work that she has been complicit in, in taking away more and more health services from the people of Australia.

Question agreed to.