James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition government is committed to ensuring affordable access to diagnostic imaging for all Australians. By contrast, every single diagnostic-imaging item was frozen throughout Labor's entire time in government. So while we are concerned about the workload of committees and committee secretariats, we will support this particular reference. At the last election, Labor did not budget for any indexation in diagnostic imaging, nor did this year's budget reply contain any funding for re-indexation. On budget night the coalition expressly re-indexed diagnostic imaging at a cost of nearly $700 million over 10 years. This is in addition to the coalition's commitment to maintain the diagnostic-imaging bulk-billing incentives at a cost of $477 million over the forward estimates. Labor is still refusing to match our re-indexation of CT, mammography, fluoroscopy and interventional procedures.

Question agreed to.