Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I can assure you I didn't think it was a two-way conversation. My understanding was that I got to talk and they sat there in silence.

We saw the increase in cost. It was $44.31 in 2022-23. In 2023-24, it was $48.07. In 2024-25, it was $49.91. In 2025-26, it was $52.94. So, despite all the rhetoric and all the palaver that goes on in the chamber about how all you need is your Medicare card, that is in the lived experience, I can assure you, of the Goldstein electorate. In fact, most people I speak to now are paying somewhere between $60 and $100 to access a doctor.

It just seems to me that we're at a tipping point of trust with the Albanese government. Even before the budget, we were teetering, but now we've completely fallen off the cliff. The reality now is that Australians simply do not believe what this government is saying. Even worse than that, if they go and plan their lives on the basis of the expectation, they're going to find it increasingly difficult to trust the government.

I used those data points because they're Goldstein ones, but, basically, they reflect what's happening across the country. Nationally, we've now hit a record of $50.77 per service, for a GP non-referred attendance. Co-payments are now, shall we say, alive and well under the Albanese government, despite the rhetoric. Of course, there are some states that experience it worse, and Goldstein is definitely at the top of that pack.

Again, I come back to a simple point. If you're paying $56.98 a co-payment in Bayside, $53.07 in Glen Eira and $50.70 in the City of Kingston, at what point does the Albanese government turn around and say: 'Actually, we don't want to push more costs onto the taxpayer for the health system. We actually want to encourage people to take ownership and choice'? They clearly like to do it with the sort of—what do you call it?—smoke and dagger arrangement that they've currently got with Medicare, but now they're trying to cannibalise and eat into the very equity that exists with private health insurance.

Coming from an electorate that has more private health insurance policies than voters, I can tell you this has not gone down very well in the Goldstein electorate. More importantly, people are increasingly seeing the gap, the gulf, the distance between truth and Albanese government rhetoric. They're living in the gap between truth and Albanese government rhetoric. At some point, we are going to see the full consequences of it.

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