Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How will changes to Medicare announced in the budget make it easier for Australians to see a doctor? Why is this investment needed?

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my friend the member for Gilmore. She's such a fierce advocate for better health care in her beautiful community on the South Coast of New South Wales, which we all know has been through so much over the last 3½ years. She knows that, after nine years of cuts and neglect to Medicare by those opposite, it's never been harder to see a doctor than it is right now and it's never been more expensive. She's seen bulk-billing rates come down. She's seen gap fees rise in her community, as they have in all of our communities, which of course has been no accident, after nine long years of government by a Liberal Party that has such a long history of opposition to Medicare in general and to bulk-billing in particular. We remember John Howard describing bulk-billing as an absolute rort. We remember the Leader of the Opposition, in his first budget, trying to abolish bulk-billing altogether and make every single Australian pay a GP tax every time they visited a doctor. We remember that, when we were able to block that infamous GP tax in the other place, he started a six-year-long freeze to Medicare rebates that ripped billions of dollars out of general practice.

Well, we have a different approach on this side. We want to strengthen Medicare, not strangle it. Instead of freezing Medicare rebates, our budget two weeks ago delivered the biggest increase to indexation in more than 30 years, since Paul Keating was the Prime Minister.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will cease interjecting for the remainder of this question.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a bigger increase to Medicare rebates across the board than was delivered in seven long years under those opposite—a period of seven years that encompassed the entire time the Leader of the Opposition was health minister, the entire time the deputy Liberal leader was health minister and the first four years of Greg Hunt's time as health minister. We have done more in one year than was done in those seven long years.

Labor regards bulk-billing as the beating heart of Medicare. That's why the centrepiece of our $6 billion Strengthening Medicare package was a $3½ billion initiative to triple the bulk-billing incentive, something the College of General Practitioners described as a game changer for general practice. It is a game changer for millions of mums and dads who want the confidence that they can take their sick kid to a bulk-bill doctor, it is a game changer for millions of pensioners, and it will be a game changer for the member for Gilmore's constituents on the South Coast of New South Wales, 90,000 of whom are eligible for the increased bulk-billing incentive. It will be a game changer for towns like Nowra, where the total fee paid to a GP for a standard bulk-billed consult will go up by 50 per cent, from $50 to $75. That's all part of Labor's plan to strengthen Medicare.