Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I think I actually said this before: the reason, Senator Cameron, is that this threshold as it is will remain sufficient to ensure that those eligible will not be liable for the Medicare levy when they are not otherwise liable to pay income tax. I am happy to be corrected by the Hansard, but I think they are the words I read out previously. So you could have listened the first time.

I am not going to take the Senate's time by responding to Senator Cameron in great detail, other than to urge people who had the misfortune to listen to it or who will have the misfortune to read it to refer to the previous speech where I actually talked about the strength of the Australian public health system and the support for that from the private sector, and the blended provision and funding. I am not sure what speech Senator Cameron heard, because I am a strong supporter of the public health system. The examples he mentioned, everyone can relate to. We have all taken a child or a family member to a public hospital. I might also add, though, that, in our larger cities at least, you can turn up to private hospitals—and I know people do; I have done it myself—and you can actually pay a substantial amount out of your pocket to get treated. I do not want to vilify those people who do, because those people are not in the queue at the Royal Children's Hospital or at the Royal Melbourne, and if that facility was not open then that is where they would be. So I do not attack those people. Those who have the ability to do so should, by all means, be allowed to. We should be protecting our public hospitals and ensuring that they can actually service the needs of as many people as possible.

Senator Cameron, I must have hit a raw nerve there—I seem to do this occasionally when I bring up the NHS—and I cannot help but think that certain people on that side have a dream of one day turning Medicare into the NHS. I say now that the Medicare system this country has—which delivers some of the best health outcomes in the world and which I am a strong supporter of, including of the Medicare system—depends on something, and that thing is partly its linchpin: that there is both public and private provision and public and private funding. That is actually what makes it so effective—as well as, I might add, reforms that were contentious ones, like case-mix funding, which, I would note, the previous Labor government adopted on a national basis. But I was actually working for the Kennett government when they were introduced, and they were not supported by the other side of politics then. I am glad that, a dozen years later, the Labor Party saw the wisdom of those changes, and I hasten to add that the IPA—which does not stand for India Pale Ale—the Institute of Public Affairs, of which I am a member, will once again be happy for your free ad, Senator Cameron.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendments; report adopted.