Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to begin by supporting the Assistant Minister for Health's assertion that the AMA is an interest group. It is very much an interest group. In fact, it is, perhaps, one of the most effective GPs' unions that is to be seen around. They are doing a bit more lobbying. It is a shame, of course, that they have the support of the opposition in the guise of Senator McLucas and even more so from the other place, with Ms Jenny Macklin spreading untruths, distortions and fear amongst the Australian population with regard to the budget measures taken by this government. We had to—because of the economic mess that we have been left. As Senator Bernardi said earlier, there is currently no co-payment for GPs. There will not be a co-payment for GPs until July next year. So spreading rumours about hypothetical cases and fear is ridiculous. It is unfair to the Australian population. I would also like to quote from Professor Brian Owler's piece today. He said:

It is impractical to collect co-payments in this [aged care] setting, particularly from patients with dementia. It is only likely to drive GPs out of this area.

What a demeaning, hypocritical, patronising statement! Since when do people with dementia automatically qualify as terribly impoverished and therefore not able to pay a GP co-payment? People with dementia certainly deserve our support and help. But that does not mean that they cannot afford to pay a fee.

I would suggest that if Professor Owler does not know how to go about charging someone with a mental health condition, he could talk to any psychologist or psychiatrist in Australia, who every day face that issue of how you go about recouping a fee for service from someone with a mental health problem. We can come up with every scenario you like. It becomes a little bit like the black knight performance that we got from Senator Doug Cameron during Senate estimates recently, where he started out wanting to know what would happen to 50-year-old woman facing domestic violence if she left home? When the Department of Human Services satisfactorily answered that and pointed out the number of supplements that were available to assist someone like that, he wanted to move the goal posts about his hypothetical person who was going to suffer dire consequences under this government. So it is crazy and dishonest of the opposition to continue with this line of 'Lets see how much we can scare them out there.' If people using Warfarin do not have their blood tests done, they are in great danger of serious consequences. Why would this opposition spend their time trying to frighten people out of going to a doctor for service when they will not have to pay the GP co-payment by trying to come up with worst-case scenarios one after the other?

As the Assistant Minister for Health has already pointed out, excellent work is being done and there has been some fantastic support given in rural and remote health and in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. There is no need for people to be frightened of the consequences of a GP co-payment. They certainly do not need to be concerned about those consequences right now because they are not happening right now, despite the opposition's best efforts to scare people into thinking that the co-payment is occurring right now. We need to look at the fact that the Assistant Minister for Health was one of the strongest proponents of an inquiry into the needs of rural and remote health services. She understands providing support to people who are marginalised—people in remote Australia, people requiring extra services—extraordinarily well. When she calls the AMA an interest group, she is simply speaking the truth. They are an interest group and to suggest that they are a disinterested group in medical terms is ridiculous. (Time expired)