Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I had the privilege this week to be introduced to a young woman who has a very rare cancer. It was at an event hosted by Rare Cancers Australia. This young woman, living in regional Australia, is 33 years old and got the terrible news that she has a very rare terminal cancer. When she finally got the diagnosis, her choice of whether she lived or died depended on her access to superannuation. She is a beautiful young woman with her whole life ahead of her. She is very lucky that the treatment that she's under at the moment is working, but it is $8,000 every time. That's not what it's about. We provide Medicare and support for all Australians.

That leads me to the meeting I had with rural GPs today in my office. I come from Tasmania, a rural and regional state. We know what it's like not to have access to specialists when we need them, and the demand on GPs is so great. So I give a shout-out to Rare Cancers Australia for all the work that they do about raising awareness.

But we want equality in this country. There's the threat of a Liberal government under Mr Dutton if he were to become Prime Minister. We know his record of cutting and using the health budget and the aged-care budget as ATMs, and that's in stark contrast to the work that Minister Mark Butler has done in the almost three years that we have been in government. There is a stark contrast. You cannot afford to risk the Liberals introducing another GP tax. For a decade, they did nothing about giving any incentives for GPs to allow longer consultations or training more GPs so that we have them in rural and regional Australia. Every Australian living in a regional or rural area is equal to any Australian living in a city in this country. (Time expired)