Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How is the Albanese Labor government strengthening Medicare, easing the cost of living and reforming the economy? How does this compare to other approaches to health and the economy?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bennelong for his question and also for being a champion for Medicare in his local community and for the important role he plays in the House's Standing Committee on Economics.

We promised to roll out more responsible cost-of-living relief and to strengthen Medicare, and we are delivering. This Saturday marks a really important day in both respects. We are strengthening Medicare because more bulk-billing means less pressure on families in local communities. We're expanding bulk-billing incentives and topping up payments for practices that bulk-bill every patient, and this means more bulk-billing doctors in more communities.

The contrast could not be clearer. Those opposite are divided and divisive, and we are delivering. We're strengthening Medicare and we're delivering cost-of-living relief at the same time as we're making progress on the reform directions agreed to at our productivity roundtable. In just the couple of months since that roundtable met, we slashed another 500 nuisance tariffs; introduced regulatory reforms in the parliament; got the Investor Front Door pilot up and running; got the regulators to reduce regulation; progressed a single national market with the states; cleared a backlog of 26,000 homes awaiting assessment; finalised the AI plan, the public sector AI strategy; reformed the super performance test; and signed off on the first set of state and territory reforms under the National Productivity Fund. And today we're introducing new laws into the parliament to reform our environmental approvals. These EPBC changes are better for the economy and better for the environment as well. They represent a faster process, driving more productivity with more transparency and stronger protections for the environment.

There is no shortage of challenges in our economy or in the world; we know that. But we also know that by working through these challenges in a considered and consultative and methodical way we are making progress. We're helping with the cost of living. We are strengthening Medicare. We've secured our AAA credit rating from Fitch this week. We're making our economy more productive over time, and we're delivering for the Australian people.

Again, I invite the House to consider the contrast between all of this progress that we're making—Medicare, the cost of living and the economy more broadly—and the divided and divisive rabble over there. Just in the last couple of weeks we've had the member for Canning spit the dummy. We've had the member for New England spit the dummy. I think the member for Hume tried to spit the dummy, but, with him, it's always hard to tell. The difference is between us delivering and them divided and divisive—

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

Order!