Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I understand why those opposite might be squirming in relation to this, but question time again today demonstrated that you cannot believe what the Prime Minister says. It's not that complicated. Here is a direct quote from the Prime Minister—no two ways about it:

Under Labor all you'll need is your Medicare card, not your credit card.

There's no qualification. It's a simple statement designed to attract votes at the election. That's what the Prime Minister said before the election: 'Under Labor all you'll need is your Medicare card, not your credit card.' On another occasion, he said:

One card covers it all. Not your credit card—your Medicare card.

There's no equivocation in that at all—not until after the election. And this is what we saw last time around. Before the 2022 election, there was a promise that your power prices would go down by $275. Of course, you cannot get a Labor Party member to say '$275' in this place these days, because what happened to the power bills after the election? They went up by over $1,000, and they're still going up. When the relief runs out in December, what remains? The higher power bills. You cannot believe this Prime Minister when he says anything.

It's a bit like the operation of this chamber. We were promised an open and transparent government—more open and transparent than any government before. Yet fewer than one in three motions for the order for the production of documents passed by this chamber—where this chamber has said to the government, 'Please hand over these documents'—is being complied with. It's the worst record ever; the most opaque government ever. So the Australian people are, quite rightly, dubious when they hear the Prime Minister make a statement like, 'Under Labor all you'll need is your Medicare card, not your credit card.'

Today we hear some sort of qualification from those opposite about official statistics from the department of health that they don't like, which say that bulk-billing rates under the coalition were at 88 per cent and fell to 77 per cent under Labor. We didn't make that up. We didn't manipulate the numbers. They are official department of health statistics. They're there for everybody to see, and now those opposite want to put some sort of qualification on them. They went up every year under the coalition, but what do we get now from the ministers in the chamber? We get tricky language. We get qualification. We get deflection. 'Blame somebody else.' 'Those numbers weren't real.' And yet all we want is for the government and the Prime Minister to keep their promises.

And it's a pretty clear promise. When you go out, hold up your Medicare card and say to the Australian people, 'Under Labor all you'll need is your Medicare card, not your credit card,' there's nothing equivocal about that. There's no qualification. There's no room to slip out the side or blame somebody else. That was a specific statement made a number of times by the Prime Minister—like the $275 reduction in power prices promise that was made 97 times before the 2022 election. The list of broken promises from Labor continues to grow and grow and grow—$275 reduction in energy prices.

Under Labor, all you will need is your Medicare card and not your credit card, yet the health minister says, 'We never said there would be 100 per cent bulk-billing.' Well, if all you'll need is your Medicare card and not your credit card, that is 100 per cent bulk-billing. We know that a quarter of services won't be bulk-billed, because that's what the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing have told us. It's about time the Labor Party started being straight with the Australian people and, in particular, started keeping their promises. (Time expired)