Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Tangney for his question. I know just how hard he works in his electorate of Perth to deliver better healthcare services.

Earlier in question time today, I talked about how hard it has become to see a doctor in Australia today and how expensive it is also. For the first time in the history of Medicare, almost 40 years, the average gap fee for a standard GP consult is now actually more than the Medicare rebate itself. That didn't happen by chance. It's the product of deliberate decisions taken by the former government over nine long years—in particular, as I said earlier in question time, those taken by the Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister back in 2014. But beyond those obvious cuts, those published cuts and the neglect to Medicare, there is a long list of cuts to health programs buried in fine print in the Morrison government's final budget—dozens and dozens of ongoing health programs that the former government refused to fund beyond 30 June this year.

Australians have learned over the last three years just how important electronic or digital health is today. The centrepiece, the mothership piece, of Australia's digital health system, allowing electronic prescribing, telehealth and so much more, is My Health Record—the personally controlled electronic health record of 23 million Australians. Although I know it is hard to believe, in the Morrison government's last budget no money at all was put aside to keep the My Health Record system going. Not a single dollar was extended to—

See this speech in context