Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Ageing. After decades of cuts and neglect, why is it so important to strengthen Medicare and to invest in aged care?

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

I thank the member for his question because he knows that nothing has been more important for this government than strengthening Medicare and aged care over the last three years, partly because health and social care is in Labor's DNA but partly, as well, because of the mess that we inherited from those opposite after a decade of cuts and neglect. As I've said before, when we came to government, we inherited bulk-billing in freefall. Last term, I outlined the impact that that horror health budget in 2014 had on bulk-billing and the role, in particular, of the health minister, at the time, the former member for Dixon. But now, as we go about the serious work of strengthening Medicare, from time to time on this side we do a Medicare pop quiz. The latest question doing the round is: 'Which health minister never once increased the Medicare rebate?' On this side, most people answer: 'Peter Dutton'. But, in his defence, even Mr Dutton increased the Medicare rebate once. They were close!

I'll talk about aged-care packages, don't worry. Even Mr Dutton increased the Medicare rebate once. I can only find one health minister who never once increased the Medicare rebate. It's the Leader of the Opposition! Indeed, I blamed Mr Dutton for the six-year Medicare rebate freeze, but when I go back to the 2016 budget, when the Leader of the Opposition was the health minister, I find not only did she double down on Mr Dutton's four-year freeze but she extended it another two years.

On the serious question of aged care, which the Leader of the Opposition interjected about, I thought I'd compare the pair. We added additional packages in the 2023 budget, the 2024 budget, the 2024 MYEFO, the 2025 budget. The Leader of the Opposition? How many additional packages do you think she added in her time of responsibility for aged care? A big doughnut. I think the residential aged-care sector would have been very happy to just be ignored by the Leader of the Opposition, like the home-care sector was, but she actually cut their funds—by half a billion dollars in MYEFO, by $1.2 billion in the 2016 budget, cuts that helped push the aged-care sector into the crisis that led the royal commission to use one word: neglect.

We take our job of strengthening Medicare and aged care very seriously, on this side, but, I tell you what, we're not going to take advice from those opposite led by the Leader of the Opposition, given her record.

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

I give the call to the Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On that note, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.