Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Would you like to start, Senator Ruston? Your time starts now. Tell us about the cuts you made to Medicare. Tell us about the GP tax that Peter Dutton brought in. Tell us about the failure index the Medicare bulk-billing rates and the MBS items. Tell us about that. I'll give you an extension of time to do that—to actually front up and be honest about what you did to Medicare and the fact that we are now investing billions of dollars into the workforce, into the support for services and into new ways of doing things through the Medicare urgent care clinics, right across this country, that you have never supported and have always criticised. And what do we see now? Thousands and thousands of people, out of hours or on weekends, with their kids, when they get sick, being able to access fully bulk-billed services, something that you never dealt with and that we have dealt with in the first 18 months. We have 30 centres across the country providing this service to the Australian community, at no charge, to make sure they can access the health services they need when they need them. (Time expired)