Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The coalition supports the measures in the Health Legislation Amendment (Improved Medicare Integrity and Other Measures) Bill 2025 to strengthen the effective administration of Australia's important health benefits schemes. We have a longstanding commitment to protecting the integrity of our health benefits schemes, such as Medicare and the PBS, and this bill is in line with that commitment. It implements a suite of measures designed to protect the integrity of Medicare, strengthen the regulations of goods under the TGA and introduce minor but necessary amendments to the tobacco act. It's important for us to be clear about the fact that we have long championed the need for strong and fair compliance within Medicare and other critical programs, like the PBS and Child Dental Benefits Schedule. We believe that preserving the integrity of these systems is fundamental to providing sustainable health care to Australians—to all Australians, not just Australians that can afford health care.

However, while we support this bill and the improvements it delivers, we also need to understand and acknowledge that there are some deficiencies here and the deeply concerning reality of Medicare under this Labor government. I think all of us saw through the last election campaign—and I witnessed it personally—our prime minister standing there with his Medicare card, saying, 'This is all you need to go to the doctor.' That is not a reality for most Australians. I spoke to many, many people throughout the election campaign, many women, who said they couldn't afford to go to the doctor themselves because they had to prioritise taking their children to the doctor, because they needed more than their Medicare card to get medical treatment for their families. I note Senator Whiteaker said that the government is looking at nine out of 10 medical appointments being bulk-billed by 2030. In 2022, when the coalition left government, 88 per cent were already being bulk-billed. So it's going to take us another five years to get to, effectively, where we were in 2022. That's something to have a think about.

The government's own national accounts confirm that there is a growing affordability crisis in our primary healthcare system, and that was reinforced by the many people that I spoke to throughout the campaign, yet all we have really seen from the Prime Minister is him waving around his Medicare card, which I believe is a disingenuous stunt to distract from the failure to provide Australians with affordable primary health care. That's not leadership. Australians deserve better than that, and Australian families shouldn't have to worry about which one of them can afford to go to the doctor that week. If you have three children sick that week, you should be able to take all three children to the doctor. You shouldn't have to determine which one it is going to be. That's because the coalition believes that every Australian deserves timely and affordable access for the health care that they need. That is a principal which guided our approach in government, when we delivered record-high bulk-billing rates, and it continues to guide us now in opposition.

We will support the passage of this bill. It is an important step in strengthening compliance and improving integrity in our public health systems. But let's be clear—this bill alone will not fix Medicare. It does not address the affordability crisis that I have spoken about. So we are going to continue to hold this government to account and to scrutinise this government in relation to their promises about Medicare—the promise that you don't need your credit card, that you need only your Medicare card when you go to the doctor. That is not the lived reality of Australians today. We will speak up for the millions of Australians who are currently paying the highest out-of-pocket costs on record when they get to the GP reception desk because of this government's failures. It is also one of the reasons that we have record ramping across our states, because people can't afford to go to the doctor so they go to the hospital, they go to emergency. That's not how this should work. That is a reflection of the outcomes that have been delivered by this government.

The coalition is incredibly concerned by the Albanese Labor government's disingenuous rhetoric about Medicare and the current state of bulk-billing. Let me reinforce this again: when this government came into office we handed them bulk-billing rates of 88 per cent. Today they stand at 77 per cent. You don't need a calculator—it's an 11 per cent variance downwards. It's not better, but worse. This government promised to strengthen Medicare, but it has been only weakened since they were elected. That 11 per cent that I talked about means 40 million fewer bulk-billed GP visits in the past year alone. Let's have a think about that.

Australians are now paying 45 per cent more to see a GP from their own pocket, and their out-of-pocket costs have literally reached the highest levels on record. That's not a good outcome; that's a bad outcome. This data has come from the government's own national accounts. It shows that more Australians are having to use their credit card along with their Medicare card, and that they are being charged the highest amount out-of-pocket on record. So let's stop and look at that again: the Prime Minister, during campaigning, said you don't need your credit card, you just need your Medicare card. But the national accounts tell us you need your credit card and you are going to have to spend more on your credit card for your visit to the doctor then you have ever had to before. That is shameful—it highlights that the Prime Minister is completely out of touch with the reality of pressures Australians are facing in this cost-of-living crisis. We already have a housing crisis. We have a rental crisis. We shouldn't have an affordability-of-healthcare crisis on top of it, but it appears that we do.

The Prime Minister, when he held up that Medicare card, would have known that the Department of Health's incoming government brief, released under FOI, estimated that some 23 per cent of GP clinics across Australia would not bulk-bill, despite the promises he made during the election. This data from the health department shows that millions of Australians, based on that and the other information that I've already provided, will still need their credit card along with their Medicare card, and, as I have just stated, you'll be paying more on that credit card. So not only do you still need it; you are going to be paying more on that card.

It's unfair to suggest that this government has delivered cheaper and more accessible health care to Australians when it absolutely has not. This is one of the many promises that Mr Albanese made at the last election, and we're going to watch this very closely. We've been very clear that we'll be constructive where we can but critical where we must. This is one of the areas where we must be critical because mums and dads in this country should not be making decisions about which one of their children or which family member they can afford to take to the doctor.