Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

For more than 40 years there have been two great truths when it comes to health policy in Australia. On this side of the House, the Labor Party has stood and will stand for universal health care through Medicare. On the other side, the conservatives have been characterised by their determination to rip it apart. They tore down Medibank and they are still committed to ripping up Medicare's universal health care and, with it, the social wage that is so important.

It is striking that amongst the chaos and dysfunction that has characterised this government there has been some consistency. The Prime Minister has said not once, not twice but on 53 separate occasions that he supports the GP tax. So let's take today's announcement with more than just a grain of salt, particularly because government members continue to describe this policy as desirable and, indeed, as good policy. This of course flies in the face of the evidence and it flies in the face of the views of the Australian people, particularly those in my electorate of Scullin where 93 per cent of GP visits are bulk-billed currently and where nearly 10,000 people have signed a petition calling on this government to scrap its plans to introduce a GP tax.

I will say this one more time to government members, and maybe they will listen. The Australian people know the government cannot be trusted. They know that, for Liberals, attacking universal health care is in their DNA. Only Labor stands for universal health care, only Labor stands for Medicare and only Labor says, 'Your health care depends not on your credit card but on your Medicare card.' (Time expired)

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