Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, I appreciate that you are raising the issues that you raised earlier when you moved your amendment. I gave a response, and I indicated that the government wouldn't be supporting your amendment. That's for a couple of reasons. The point of this bill is to give us investigative powers and to make sure that our investigators have the tools that they need to investigate noncompliance. We take noncompliance very seriously.

We also, of course, want to maintain access. In this country, we want people to understand that, if they get sick, if their children get sick or if they hurt themselves, they can obtain access to medical care. We don't want to place too many barriers in the way of people obtaining that care. I think many of the people that you represent in Queensland, Senator Hanson, would genuinely value their ability to see a doctor and to get the medicines that they and their family need. Those are the issues that we in the government think about when we're making policy around health care, and we're very, very proud of the system that we've created that allows people to have access. It's not so in every other country around the world, and Australians can be very, very proud of the system we've created together. It was the subject of very substantial debate, you may recall, in the most recent election, and I think the response that Australians provided to proposals around Medicare demonstrate the value that Australians place in the Medicare system.