Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Medicare) Share this | Hansard source

The minister is interjecting yet again from the table. I have to say, it is great that the minister actually stays for these MPIs. He's the only frontbench minister who actually stays to debate me on MPIs. I think that says something about how nervous he is. It is great, because he was missing in action, frankly, in the last election campaign—no debate between the Libs and Labor on health care. It is great that the minister's actually here but I do note the fact that he feels the need to be here, that he actually has to be here. Are you feeling a bit of heat, mate? You'll get your time, sunshine. Here we are.

Excuse my cynicism, but I don't trust a single word that this government says when it comes to health care. The government makes the claim that it's going to redirect all of its savings into health care. I suspect most Australians will take a similar view to us, that the government's assurances when it comes to health care are absolutely worthless. By way of an example, there's $190 million in savings from the MBS review. There is just $25 million in new MBS listings. That is a cut to Medicare. Where is the rest of the money going? You can't say population growth and the use of services in Medicare is actually increasing Medicare. You just can't. Population growth is not actually a policy about increasing people's access to Medicare services and new innovations in Medicare. It is not going into new services.

We certainly know that it is not going into public hospitals. After four years of ongoing Abbott-Turnbull cuts to Australian public hospitals, they are in crisis across this country. When this government broke its 2013 election promise—tore up Labor's historic national health reform agreement with the states—it walked away from a commitment to fund an equal share of efficient growth in hospital costs. In case the minister doesn't remember, I'll show him. Here it is in black and white—or in blue and yellow, which I think were your colours then—your 2013 election commitment, which said you would match Labor's historic health and hospital reforms, funding 50 per cent of growth in the efficient price of hospital activity. That was your policy to match Labor. What has this government actually done? That is a commitment that was designed to end the blame game, to stop cost shifting between the states and to put budget certainty into our public hospital systems. But after the 2014 horror budget, what we saw was that this was not sacred. They said, 'No cuts to health'. There were not going to be any cuts to hospitals. They had their policy here, and this is what they've done.

The current Prime Minister eventually, after a campaign run by Labor, restored some of the funding in the lead up to the 2016 election campaign, because they knew they had a very big problem when it came to this. What he then did was offer 45 per cent of growth in the efficient price capped at 6.5 per cent. That, Minister, is a cut to our public hospitals. From 2017 to 2020 alone that is $715 million that you have cut from our public hospital system. Now what you have tried to do is lock that cut in for a further five years, to 2025. That is a cut of $2.8 billion out of our public hospital system. That is the record of this government.

He's been going around the country, trying to browbeat some of the states into signing this deal. Most of those that have signed, including the Labor states that have signed, have said very clearly that they have only done so—the Northern Territory actually hasn't signed yet, Minister. I know you have been claiming they have, but they actually haven't signed yet. What those states are saying very clearly to us is that they know this is an inadequate deal but they don't trust this government not to cut public hospitals further. That's what they are telling us. They've done so for budget certainty, and they are looking to us to fix this government's mess when it comes to our public hospital system. It is an inadequate deal and represents a $2.8 billion cut to our public hospitals from 2019.

Our public hospitals simply cannot keep up with demand at the moment. That is why we are seeing emergency department waiting times blow out across the country. Elective surgery waiting times are also getting longer and longer under this government. The Australian Medical Association put it best when they recently said:

… the current funding formula will doom our public hospitals to fail, and patients will suffer as a result.

That is the record of this minister and this government. It's the grimmest of warnings from one of the most respected medical groups, but this government has not been listening. It's been going around, trying to keep everything quiet on health, because it knows it's got a problem when it comes to health, represented by the Minister for Health, who is willing to actually debate on this issue. He is the only frontbench minister who takes MPIs—good on him. They are out there desperately trying to spin the line that they are spending more on health than ever before. That's what they're trying to say. What they're studiously neglecting to mention is that spending is declining on a per capita basis—the most important measure. As experts from the Macquarie University Centre for the Health Economy warned a fortnight ago as a result of this government spending trajectory, 'Australians will either become sicker or be forced to pay more for their medical care'. That is what they have said. The group's director, Henry Cutler, said:

… real health expenditure would grow by 1 per cent less than population growth over the forward estimates—

which is a cut, Minister. The government insists that spending more than they were, using the Abbott government as their baseline—that's what this minister does. This is what this minister does: he uses the Abbott 2014 budget as the baseline and then tries to say, 'We're putting $30 billion more into public hospitals.' You're putting in $30 billion more than the member for Warringah did when he was Prime Minister. That is the baseline that you're using. It's a pretty poor baseline given the billions of dollars it represented as a cut to our public hospital. The government insist that they're spending more, as I said, using that baseline—the lowest of low bars to use. If they really think that being slightly better than Tony Abbott on public hospitals is generous, then it shows just how out of touch the government are. The government know that their funding is lousy. That's why they've resorted to comparing spending in 2015 to 2020 with spending under their proposed deal for the subsequent five years. Of course the Commonwealth will spend more on public hospitals in 2025. There are going to be about five million more people in Australia in 2025 than there were in 2015. So, basically, they are fudging the numbers.

On Medicare, too, we know that the government's record is absolutely and utterly shameful. They have cut already out of the Medicare Benefits Schedule over $3 billion. That is their legacy when it comes to Medicare. The freeze on the Medicare Benefits Schedule, the savings that they've made from that, the cut on patients' rebates, the capacity for people to be able to access their doctor—that is the record of this government. Record cuts to Medicare, record destruction of our health— (Time expired)

Ms Flint interjecting—

Mr Deputy Speaker, I just ask you to ask the member behind you to withdraw the unparliamentary remark she just made.

See this speech in context