David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love it when the opposition bring up these MPIs on health and make these outrageous claims. There are black-and-white budgetary figures that show that most of what has been said in the last two speeches from the other side is absolute rubbish. First of all, Medicare funding has gone up exponentially. There's another $4.8 billion going into Medicare over the next four years. Bulk-billing rates have gone from 82 per cent up to 86 per cent. That is not a reduction in Medicare billing. There is $10 billion more annually since 2013 going into Medicare billing than there was in the last final year of the ALP being in charge of health. It is unbelievable that they have the temerity to say that we've cut things in Medicare. We've established the Medicare guarantee legislation, which means that the first funds out of the budget go into Medicare funding and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme funding, and it's topped up by income tax. So there is a legislated guaranteed allocation of funds and appropriation for health first up.

On hospital funding, my goodness, there has been so much more money go into state and territory hospital funding than you could realistically expect. In fact, one would say we have taken over more responsibility than any other government since Federation. Hospital funding to all the states has increased by 70 per cent since 2013. And the new hospital agreement that has just been signed up to go from 2020-21 out to the 2024-25 budgetary year will increase funding by another $30.2 billion. The states must be so pleased that they have got all these extra funds. Just so you know that I can count: $13.3 billion from the federal government in 2013 and this year it's $22.7 billion. That is a massive increase.

I will go to some of the other pillars of our health system—for example, health insurance. We have reformed health insurance and we've changed what can be claimed on health insurance for people in regional and rural Australia. We've given a discount to young people in order to get more young people to take up private health insurance early. You will be able to claim a travel allowance under the new scheme if you are using your private health insurance.

Regarding one of the other pillars, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, we've just heard the most up-to-date figures. There are 1,900 new or amended listings. There is $10 billion a year going into the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, of which $2.4 billion has been for new listings. Whether it is for asthma, cystic fibrosis or cancers like leukaemia, lymphoma, ovarian cancer or melanoma—you name it—there are new drugs there that will give hope to people who have been afflicted by serious cancers. Whether you have heart failure or hepatitis C, there are new, amazing drugs that are now on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that weren't there before. They have been listed because we have had the economic management in place to secure the funds for these vital services. We have grown the pie. We are cutting taxes. We have done so much to secure the essential services that everyone in Australia relies on.

We have given another 30 MRI licences. That's another bonus to the state hospitals, because some of these MRI licences will be in public hospitals. Medicare is subsidising cutting-edge radiology in state and territory public hospitals. There's another 20 MRI licences that can be tendered for. That's a 17 per cent increase. As for what we've done in mental health, there have been extra funds for mental health in the bush. Mr Laverty, the CEO of Royal Flying Doctor Service, came to us when I was in the health portfolio and said, 'We need more money for mental health.' And what did we get in the last budget? We got extra millions and millions of dollars for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. We've expanded end-to-end medical school training in regional Australia. The Medical Research Future Fund has kicked the funding into biomedical translation funds and for blue sky development of new research ideas. (Time expired)

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