Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

The reality is that, when the Hawke government introduced a co-payment, they did so because they wanted to see Medicare sustainable. Labor can pretend that they can rack up debt for ever more, that they can give free services to all Australians, and that somehow the party can continue on. The reality is—and the Australian people know this: it can't; it just can't. Ten years ago we were spending $8 billion a year on Medicare; today we are spending $20 billion a year. As a Commonwealth, we spend $65 billion a year on health; the Medicare levy raises $10 billion. I want to make sure that, as our population ages, and as we get medical services, new technologies, DNA testing and genomics testing—all of this, which will be important for us to fund into the future—we have a sustainable Medicare.

The Labor Party believed in well-thought-out public policy, once upon a time. When Labor were in government, they put money into GP super clinics. They put it into wasteful programs, including increasing the number of people in the health bureaucracy. But it was not always the case. Back in the Hawke years, Jenny Macklin, as the head of the policy department that advised Brian Howe at that point, said that a co-payment was necessary to make Medicare sustainable. They do not like it but it is true.

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