Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I follow Senator Bilyk in this debate with some disappointment because I know and like Senator Bilyk but, regrettably, she just follows the Labor lies about health and education. I see some school students up in the gallery and they would have heard Senator Bilyk say that the government has cut funding to schools and to health. These are the facts of the matter: under the new national health agreement, where the Commonwealth funds most of the states to provide hospital and health services, the coalition is on track to double funding from $13.3 billion in 2012-13—when the Labor Party was in charge of the government—to a record $28.3 billion under the coalition.

I repeat that: the coalition is doubling the billions of dollars that come under the national health agreement for the states' hospitals. It is doubling what Labor paid, yet Labor speakers continue the mantra that became quite famous at the last federal election and actually has become part of the lexicon of our nation when you want to demonstrate something that is an outright and absolute lie: the 'Mediscare' campaign by the Labor Party at the last federal election. Around the country, they got on the telephones and started telephoning people at random, saying the coalition was going to cut Medicare, which was a complete and absolute untruth. It was an unmitigated lie, and yet the Labor Party perpetrated that lie—the 'Mediscare' campaign—all the way through the election, and it did result in changes of votes. But, as I've just indicated, the fact is that, under the coalition's plan, funding for the national health agreement will double to $28 billion.

Madam Deputy President, the coalition's increase in hospital funding is up to 6.5 per cent per annum, and that is more than four times population growth, which is only 1.6 per cent, and more than three times the consumer price index, which is at 1.9 per cent. So popular is the coalition's offering on health that New South Wales, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory have signed up to the Commonwealth national health agreement, and half of the governments that have signed up with glee and relish are, indeed, Labor state or territory governments.

Madam Deputy President, we continue to fund hospitals and health very, very appropriately. The 'abolition of Medicare' as Labor called it, in one of the greatest lies of our generation, has been proven to be false. This government has established the Medicare Guarantee Fund, which guarantees by legislation—the Medicare Guarantee Act—the Medicare Benefits Schedule and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Indeed, Madam Deputy President, under the coalition government, more Australian patients are seeing doctors without having to reach for their wallets. At 85.8 per cent in the period July 2017 to March this year, we have seen the highest bulk-billing rate at any time since the inception of Medicare—and that's under a coalition government. The GP bulk-billing rate is up by 3.8 per cent since Labor was last in government and more than 97.7 million bulk-billed GP visits were provided to patients between July 2017 and March 2018. That's an extra 3.7 million services bulk-billed under Medicare during the coalition's term of office. I might say, Madam Deputy President—