Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Minister for Sport) Share this | Hansard source

behind the Leader of the Opposition's dirty lie on 'Mediscare' is this: Labor has no health policy; otherwise we would not have seen the Leader of the Opposition hiding behind the robocalls of his union mates, ringing people late at night. That was because there was nothing positive to say. There was no agenda.

Actually, there might have been something! There was another great new health bureaucracy that the member for Ballarat announced. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection had to get rid of three huge Labor health bureaucracies when he took on the portfolio. Another one surfaced, but do you know what the purpose of this new health bureaucracy was? It was to tell the Labor Party what to do, because there was no policy; there is no policy. There is no understanding that one part of the health system carefully intersects with another part and overall the total management produces the outcomes that the Prime Minister spoke of: new medicines, new listings, and the ability of a government to put patients at the centre of health care in Australia—something the Labor Party could not do.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

In fact, the member for Sydney interjects, reflecting on her magnificent stewardship of the Australian health system. Do you know what she said? She said: 'Everything I did I paid for. And you know how I paid for it? I targeted private health insurance.' Wonderful, isn't it: 'Everything I did I paid for by targeting private health insurance'! It illustrates a fundamental misunderstanding by Labor that if you do not have a strong private system you do not have a strong public system. It indicates a complete misunderstanding by Labor—a previous health minister who could not pay for the medicines that the Prime Minister talked about and made no apology.

In the absence of their health policy during the election, we have had to go back and look at Labor's record in government. We have no policy, so let's judge them by what they did. What they did was cut $6 billion from Medicare and medicines. What they did was cut $1.4 billion from pathology and diagnostic imaging. What they did was break an imaginary $57 billion promise on hospitals. What they did was wage war on future cures for diseases by trying to take $400 million out of medical research. Judge them by what they did and what they say. Their 'Mediscare' lies have been revealed.

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