Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. How will nurses and other health professionals benefit from Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts? How do the tax cuts build on the investment the government is making to strengthen Medicare, and why are these investments so important after a decade of cuts and neglect?

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! Members on my right and left will cease interjecting.

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

I thank the member for Bendigo for her question, because there are 66,000 taxpayers in her electorate who on 1 July will receive a tax cut to help with the cost of living—every single one of them; not some but every single one of them—and many of those taxpayers are working in health, including at the Bendigo and St John of God hospitals in the member's electorate. On 1 July a third-year registered nurse at the Bendigo hospital will receive a tax cut of more than $1,550, which is more than double what they would have received under the plan from those opposite. A trainee enrolled nurse will receive a tax cut of $937—

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

The member for Barker is warned.

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

compared to just $133, which is what they would've received under those opposite. This is helping hardworking health and hospital workers not only earn more but keep more of what they earn.

These bigger, better tax cuts for middle Australia build on a range of other measures we've been putting in place to help with the cost of living, like more support for bulk-billing. When we came to government, bulk-billing—in particular, for GP visits—was in freefall, and that slide can be traced directly back to the Leader of the Opposition's time as the health minister. His first budget glossy as health minister a decade ago said:

From 1 July 2015, previously bulk-billed patients can expect to contribute … towards the cost of standard GP consultations and out-of-hospital pathology and imaging services.

That was his plan to abolish bulk-billing altogether, and, when he couldn't get it through the Senate, he instead kicked off a years-long freeze to the Medicare rebate that literally ripped billions and billions of dollars out of general practice.

That is not our plan. For Labor, bulk-billing is the beating heart of Medicare, and that's why in the budget last year we tripled the incentive for bulk-billing, something the GPs college described as a game changer. In the first two months of operation of those new arrangements, Australians have seen more than 360,000 additional free visits to the GP, and no member of this House has promoted those investments more strongly than the member for Bendigo. She has been advertising it widely and talking to every single general practice in her electorate, and her community has reaped the benefits of her hard work, with an eight per cent increase in bulk-billing in just two months. That is 9,000 additional free visits to the general practitioner in just two months, saving hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in gap fees.

John Howard called bulk-billing an absolute rort. The Leader of the Opposition tried to abolish it altogether. But, for Labor, bulk-billing is the beating heart of a strong Medicare. (Time expired)