Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

Pensioners have received 83 million additional free scripts because of our changes to the safety net threshold, and, in five weeks time, PBS scripts will be capped at just $25, the same price they were back in 2004. While the opposition opposed many of those measures last term, they promised in May that they would support all of these election commitments. But I regret to say that risks to that are emerging. In between organising a very successful drinks event on Monday night, the very busy member for Lindsay managed to squeeze in an exclusive interview with the Australian where she staked out a position on every single policy except communications, and she said that there was 'too much matching', and that she thought that the Liberal Party should lean in to health policy a little bit more. Well, I'll tell you this: we remember, and Australians know what it means when the Liberal Party says that they're going to lean in to health policy. We remember when the Leader of the Opposition leaned in to health policy and extended the Medicare rebate freeze for four more years. They are an absolute risk to a stronger Medicare, an absolute risk to cheaper medicines. No matter which of them you pick, the member for Lindsay or the member for Hume, they're all a risk.

Honourable members interjecting—

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