Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

Having made the point that we have achieved agreements—and I am advised by the department for the first time in Australia with all of these groups simultaneously—and expressed our support for the medical profession, I was surprised that last Friday the Leader of the Opposition launched a vicious attack on the medical profession. In front of the AMA Federal Council he referred to the AMA's shared vision partnership with the Australian government as a cash-for-no-comment agreement. This has been vigorously rejected by the AMA, has been vigorously rejected by the doctors and has been vigorously rejected by the Royal Australian College of GPs. None of these groups have a history of silence. These groups will not have a future history of silence I venture to predict. They are strong and independent.

However, this is consistent with a pattern of attacking others. It is fine to go after me. It is fine to go after the Minister for Aged Care, although personally I would not do that. We are elected members of parliament. It is wrong to attack the AMA and it is wrong to attack health officials.

I want to say to the member for Ballarat that attacking departmental officials is wrong, inappropriate and not the thing that a member of parliament—let alone an aspiring health minister—should be doing. Having said that, let me make it absolutely clear that our policy is that we believe in private health insurance. The proposal from the Federation white paper, which would see the abolition of private health insurance, is one that this government, myself and the Prime Minister comprehensively and utterly reject. It will not happen on our watch and is rejected.

At the same time, we have massively increased hospital funding, at a faster rate than occurred under the ALP. We believe in private health insurance, we are funding the hospitals and we have the highest bulk-billing rates for this quarter against any previous— (Time expired)

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