David Fawcett (Wakefield, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Health and Ageing. Would the minister update the House on the government’s latest measures to strengthen Medicare? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies, and what is the government’s response?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me just say what a great advocate for better health services the member for Wakefield is. The GP after hours clinic at Gawler is at least in part due to his advocacy. And, thanks in part to these kinds of new measures, the GP bulk billing rate in his electorate has gone up by nine percentage points since 2003. Not for nothing is the Howard government known throughout this land as the best friend that Medicare has ever had, and the reason for that is that the Howard government do not rest on their laurels. We never rest on our laurels. In the budget a fortnight ago, we committed another $291 million to give people with chronic disease better access to specialist services and to give people with chronic disease better access to Medicare. For dentistry there was $378 million and there was more than $120 million for Indigenous health programs. Just this morning, the government announced an extension of GP procedural training grants to regional cities such as Queanbeyan and Townsville. In part that is because of the ferocious advocacy of those great, hardworking local members, the member for Eden-Monaro and the member for Herbert, who want to make sure that GP services continue to be available in their public hospitals.

Meanwhile, the Australian Labor Party have no policy on health except to cut funding and to rip the guts out of the fee-for-service principle on which Medicare is always based. At the AMA conference last weekend, the member for Gellibrand was asked about cashing out Medicare rebates into some kind of pooled fund. This is what she said in response—listen to this: ‘So we have no plans for the pooling of those payments and we ... but we are always going to.’ This is the kind of gobbledygook that we have come to expect from someone who, tragically, is the alternative health minister of this country. She went on to say, ‘We have to look at ways that we can modernise Medicare,’ and we all know what Labor means when they talk about modernising something. They want to modernise Medicare out of existence. Labor has form. I suspect that the Leader of the Opposition wants to modernise Medicare like he modernised Queensland Health. He modernised Queensland Health by cutting 2,200 public hospital beds, he modernised Queensland Health by closing six operating theatres, he blew out dental waiting lists to three years and he sacked the chief nursing officer for Queensland. Not for nothing was this guy known as Dr Death when he was the director-general of the Christian socialist government of Queensland. From what we have seen from him lately, I think he is suffering from a chronic condition himself. It is called TDD: truth deficit disorder. That is what we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition over the last few days. Let me say of the Leader of the Opposition, if he is untrustworthy with the truth, you certainly cannot trust him with Medicare.