Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

is central to cost-of-living relief, and of course making health care affordable is in Labor's DNA. So we are delivering cost-of-living relief for Australians who are doing it tough: tax cuts, getting wages moving, $300 in energy bill relief for every household. We are working to ensure that all Australians have access to affordable, quality health care; reducing the price of PBS medicines; adding hundreds of medicines to that list; introducing 60-day prescriptions, to help save patients time and money.

But of course we know, on the other side, what their attitude is, and that is demonstrated by Mr Dutton's record and by their record. When they were voted out of office, bulk-billing was falling off a cliff, and the rot began when Mr Dutton was health minister. He tried to do away with bulk-billing by introducing a fee on every single visit to the GP, and then he started a six-year freeze on Medicare rebates.

Well, our government, the Albanese government, has made the largest investment in bulk-billing in Medicare in 40 years, tripling the bulk-billing incentive from 1 November.