Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to say to the member for Ryan and to his constituents that this has been a great week for Medicare. This week’s budget commits $1.9 billion to mental health, there is $250 million to the health workforce and there is $500 million to the Australian Better Health Initiative, as well as a record $905 million in new money for health and medical research. In a year when our economy is tipped to grow to $1 trillion, federal health spending will reach $48 billion. And there is a clear message in this: Peter Costello is the best Treasurer Medicare has ever had.

I have been asked about alternative policies, and let us give credit where it is due. I applaud the Leader of the Opposition’s belated decision to finally dump the Medicare Gold policy. It takes a bit of guts for Mr Twenty-Four Per Cent to ditch the policy belonging to Madam Thirty-Two Per Cent over there, but that is what he said last week. This week the member for Lalor was asked, ‘Will you be maintaining some of the principles of Medicare Gold?’ and she said yes. And just this very day I go onto the ALP website and I see a reference to a Medicare Gold ad which has the voice of Mark Latham saying: ‘No more delays, no more waiting lists; this is an important extension of the universal coverage of Medicare. We call it Medicare Gold.’ So they have taken his hat off the website but they have still got his ad on the website. And the website encourages people to play this ad over and over and over and over again, so you have got the ghost that walks, you have got the policy that talks and it is still on the Labor Party’s website. I will say this: a political party with no health policy whatsoever will never be in government. It will never be in government, and it does not matter how many speeches he gets Bob Ellis to write for him.

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