Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

Today we saw, in response to a question that I asked of the Minister representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Senator McCarthy tell the chamber that, under Labor, bulk-billing rates are lower and out-of-pocket costs are lower. It has literally never been more expensive or more difficult to see a doctor than it is right now. But, at the same time this is happening, the Labor Party are reheating their disgraced 'Mediscare' campaign in an attempt to distract from their health failures.

Let's be clear: Labor is outright telling factually incorrect information to Australians. In fact, an ABC article published today made that very clear. The ABC article has actually called out the Australian Labor Party for misleadingly editing a video of the Leader of the Opposition which perpetuates their shameful scare campaign. The coalition has been crystal clear, and I'll say it again here: a Dutton coalition government will guarantee the growing funding of Medicare. We support Australians having access to bulk-billing services, and that includes through urgent care clinics. We're focused on ensuring all Australians have affordable and timely access to a GP. But Labor don't seem to care about the truth, and it seems that they're quite happy to continue to focus on efforts to provide misleading information to the Australian public. On the other hand, the coalition is focused on tackling Labor's primary care crisis.

So let's set the record straight, shall we? As I said, Peter Dutton has committed to the coalition guaranteeing the growing funding of Medicare, and this is actually consistent with our record when we were in government. The former coalition government increased Medicare funding every single year and, in our last budget in government, included a $7.3 billion increase in Medicare funding. We increased hospital funding, and we oversaw record-high bulk-billing rates. It doesn't matter what the other side says; the facts of the matter are that, when we left government, bulk-billing rates were in excess of 88 per cent and, in the space of less than two years, under the government opposite, they have actually dropped by more than 11 per cent. As we stand here today, the bulk-billing rate is 11 per cent lower than when they came to government.

When we took the reins of government in 2013 and during our period, we saw a rise of six per cent in bulk-billing. They have seen a fall of 11 per cent. Right now, as we are sitting here, under Labor the bulk-billing rate is 77.5 per cent. That's significantly lower than 88.8 per cent, which is what the bulk-billing rate was under us, when it was at its highest. So at best we have seen a stagnation of the bulk-billing rate, but the government are now claiming that they've seen some sort of increase in bulk-billing. The facts don't lie. The bulk-billing rate has dropped by 11 per cent.

But what makes things even worse is that Australians are now paying 45 per cent more on average to see a doctor under Labor, in comparison to under the former coalition government. The cold, hard facts are that the out-of-pocket costs to see your GP are the highest they have been since records started. But the really, really concerning fact—if those facts aren't concerning enough—is that last year over 1.5 million Australians avoided seeing their doctor because they said they simply couldn't afford to do so. That's a 25 per cent increase on just the year before. That means that our hospitals are now seeing patients who are much sicker because they haven't had access at the primary care level. They are becoming sicker and are presenting at our hospitals. So Labor's primary care crisis is now exacerbating the crisis that we have in our hospitals.

I would say this to Anthony Albanese, who said to Australians that he was not going to leave anyone behind: you have left sick Australians behind. Their out-of-pocket costs are higher. They can't get in to see a bulk-billing doctor. They're sicker before they're able to interact with the healthcare system because they can't afford to see a GP. Hardworking Australians who can't access bulk-billing have become Anthony Albanese's forgotten patients. The healthcare crisis is just another crisis of the making of your cost-of-living crisis.