Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. A short walk from the minister's electorate office is Harbour Medical Services, where a patient notice was issued on 1 July, stating:

… due to increasing costs of running the Practice, we must advise that the GAP FEE for Private Patients has increased.

…   …   …

Full payment of account on the day is REQUIRED.

Isn't it the case that Australians need both their Medicare card and their credit card to get the health care they need under Labor?

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

Order! The member will not use props.

Honourable members interjecting—

Order! The member has asked her question in silence, and now we're going to listen to the minister for health and Minister for Disability and the NDIS.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaker, as you know, I love a question about bulk-billing. I absolutely love it, and I've been waiting for one. We're more pleased to talk about bulk-billing than maybe any other policy in Medicare because, for us, bulk-billing has been at the beating heart of a system of universal health insurance generationally opposed by those opposite. And the Leader of the Opposition is right; when we came to government, it was in freefall. The Leader of the Opposition had a bit to do with that. As a health minister who never increased the Medicare rebate and as a health minister who extended the freeze from her predecessor for four long years, the Leader of the Opposition knows a bit about why bulk-billing was dropping.

But the record investment we made in 2023 did have the desired effect on bulk-billing for concession card holders. It's back to over 90 per cent. But, as we have said, it has continued to drop for people without a concession card. That is why the Prime Minister made a commitment to extend bulk-billing relief, in November—not now; in November—to all patients, to every single Australian. Clinics are already telling us that they'll be moving to a full bulk-billing model.

Now, I've been a little puzzled by the coverage over the last couple of weeks that a quarter of clinics would not move to 100 per cent bulk-billing, as if that was some revelation. It was actually in our media release in February, because that was the modelling that the department put in place. But then I was even more puzzled by the opposition seizing on this as some great, new deception by us, because it was their policy as well, and I'd imagined that the leadership group that got together, when we announced the policy, to consider whether or not they'd support it, might have actually asked some questions. Sitting around with their 'Peter Dutton for PM' keep cups, they might have asked a couple of questions about the policy they endorsed half an hour later.

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

The minister's going to pause. I want to hear from the Manager of Opposition Business.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Direct relevance, Speaker—he wasn't asked about opposition policy. But, if he wanted to get unpuzzled, he could read the notice about this at Harbour Medical Services, just near his electorate office.

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

The minister was asked about patients and whether they require their Medicare card and credit card to have a doctor's services under Labor. That was the question he was asked. He'll need to refine his answer to make sure he's being directly relevant. He can do some compare and contrast. He has been on topic. But he's got a minute to go. He simply can't use the remaining minute to talk about opposition policy, because he wasn't asked about opposition policy.

Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm helping those opposite to understand the policy they took to the last election which will take effect on 1 November, and clinics will decide whether to take up the very generous offer we made—and those opposite matched—to extend bulk-billing support to every single patient in the country. We're very confident in the modelling. They may not have bothered to look at it as they were considering whether or not to support our policy, but we're very confident about the modelling. Three-quarters of clinics will move to full bulk-billing. The rest will have something less than that. And, when you add those two together, we will get to 90 per cent bulk-billing by the end of this decade. We're very confident.

But what this has done is cleared up whether the support that those opposite apparently gave to our policy was some road-to-Damascus conversion by Peter Dutton and by the now leader of the opposition—who caused this problem in the first place—or whether it was a cynical, political device. This question clears that up forever.