Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly will, Mr Speaker. You may well recall that policy being matched almost before I finished my speech. At the time we put out written documentation. We had costed policies. I'm not surprised that the opposition don't recognise this territory, but we had costed policies of $8.5 billion to lift bulk-billing rates to 90 per cent by 2030. The timeline hasn't changed, the investment hasn't changed and the modelling is the same. The question is: have the coalition changed their position? When I made the announcement on the date that the member suggested, they said they would back it—and now it appears that they don't back it. Now it appears they don't support it, which isn't surprising given that when they came into office last time, as we reminded people once or twice during the election campaign, they tried to abolish bulk-billing altogether by introducing a Medicare co-payment. One of the big differences in this chamber is that we on this side value Medicare; those on that side are led by someone who said, 'If you don't pay for it, you don't value it.' Well, we value Medicare. We will defend Medicare, and they will always undermine it.

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