Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen has just regaled us, and in so doing, he has proved to me one thing: he is the political equivalent of a threatened species. He may well become an endangered species. Who knows? He might not be here to talk about the future of health care.

For those that are listening to this debate, I will make one statement, and it is clear: you would not believe it from what has occurred in this chamber today, but both sides of this House are committed to universal health care. Nothing could be truer than that statement. It is a fundamental truism, and no amount of hyperventilation on the part of those opposite will make that not so.

I was reflecting on the fact that this is a discussion of a matter of public importance, but really, to be honest, it is a matter of rank hypocrisy. Maybe we should change the name of what we do after question time, because Mr Deputy Speaker Broadbent, you know, because you have been in this place much longer than me, that it was Labor that introduced the freeze on the MBS indexation and Labor also cut funding from the extended Medicare safety net and from a range of Medicare item numbers, including GP mental health services. So I will not—and I think those on this side of the chamber ought not—accept lectures from those opposite about MBS indexation arrangements. Quite frankly, despite the amount of hyperbole that I have heard from those opposite in respect of this matter of rank hypocrisy, their record speaks for themselves.

You do not necessarily need to take my view of this; there are others that have indicated that there is a need for reform. In fact, Nicola Roxon, in her capacity as Minister for Health and Ageing in October 2011, said:

Without reform and a careful and methodical approach, the system—

That is Medicare or the MBS—

will cannibalise itself. Because in health there is a continuous clamour for more and more funding with no regard to where the money comes from.

So what are we going about doing? Well, what we are going about doing is what you would expect of an adult government: we are undertaking a review. We are looking at 5,700 Medicare items with a view to ensuring they are clinically contemporary and effective. This is the kind of rational, sensible policymaking that those opposite were too lazy or perhaps too short-sighted to achieve in their six years in government.

Having embarked upon that process of rational review and clinical consideration, why do those opposite shriek about what we do?

They shriek about what we do because they know that it is critical. They know that the cost of Medicare to the Commonwealth has blown out from $8 billion 10 years ago to $20 billion currently, and in 10 years time it will be $34 billion. So there is a need, in the management of the economy, which we are responsible for, to ensure that we are careful about this. Why do we need to be careful about this? We need to be careful about this—I wind all the way back to the beginning—because we are committed to universal health care.

Those opposite say that we are undermining Medicare. Unfortunately for them, 275 million Medicare services were provided to patients in the 2013-14 year. More than four out of five of those services were free to patients—that is 80 per cent. Australians access more than a million MBS services per day. That is the highest level the system has reached since its inception.

Why are we talking about Medicare? We are talking about Medicare because Labor cannot help themselves; they simply revert to type, and their type is to run these not-so-scary scare campaigns—and this is another example of it. I remind those listening that we are dealing with a matter of public importance, which I think should properly be described as a 'matter of rank hypocrisy'. In any event, they revert to type because they know that, if they campaign on their recently announced package regarding negative gearing, they will be punished at the ballot box. I have it on reasonable authority that,8 when the proponents of their negative gearing policy walked into the caucus room and proposed it, most people on the other side thought they were talking about putting the car in reverse. We are here talking about Medicare because they do not want to talk about their policy of negative gearing— (Time expired)

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