Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the steps the government is taking to guarantee the services that Australians rely on, grow the economy and generate jobs? Are there any threats to the government's approach?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. As honourable members know, our budget is delivering fairness, opportunity and security for all Australians. We are delivering on our promises and not saying one thing but doing another. We are guaranteeing Medicare through a new, dedicated Medicare Guarantee Fund, we are adding more lifesaving drugs to the PBS and we are overseeing record levels of bulk-billing. We want to ensure that Medicare is guaranteed and quarantined from cheap political scares and stunts such as we have seen from the Labor Party. They are long on rhetoric and short on delivery. We have listed more drugs, nearly four times as many drugs, on the PBS as they did in their time in office—new, life-saving drugs delivering, saving lives, making Australians well. That is what we have been doing with the PBS. Labor rationed it.

Labor talk about the National Disability Insurance Scheme. At first they said it was fully funded.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

They are still saying that.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Moreton will cease interjecting.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But now they say they have a better way of funding it. The reality is that we cannot be sure where they stand. They are long on rhetoric and short on dollars. We are delivering on the National Disability Insurance Scheme. We are fully funding it with an extra half a per cent on the Medicare levy.

Labor has the opportunity to rise above petty partisanship, as the majority of their shadow cabinet told the Leader of the Opposition, as the member for Grayndler knows is right and just. Support this measure. It is utterly consistent with the steps Labor took in office when they raised the Medicare levy by half a per cent. Every single argument the Leader of the Opposition addressed then is valid today, but he is deaf to it because he is all tactics and no strategy, he is all rhetoric and no integrity, and he is all political games and no consistency. One thing today, another thing tomorrow. There is no true line through the Leader of the Opposition except his own self-interest. All politics, no policy.

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

The member for Isaacs calls out 'fairness'. Well, fairness is a faint hope on that side of the House, just a faint cry. It is good to see there is still somebody talking about fairness on the Labor side. It is a pity nobody is doing anything about it.

Then we see the extraordinary hypocrisy on the matter of schools. For years they talked about needs based funding. For years they talked about David Gonski. We are delivering needs based funding. We are delivering Gonski's vision. We are delivering it transparently, fairly, consistently across the nation. Labor has betrayed it. (Time expired)