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

Thank you for the question, Senator Polley. When Labor came to government in 2022, the consequences of a coalition government neglecting this issue for a decade were there for all to see. The coalition's six-year freeze of the Medicare rebate ripped billions and billions of dollars out of Medicare and the AMA estimates it would have taken $8.3 billion out of Medicare by 2027-28. It wasn't just a budget headline, because those decisions made it harder for people to see a doctor. This situation was completely untenable. It led to a genuine decline in access to health care across the country. The Albanese government's response to this crisis—a product of coalition neglect and ideological blinkeredness—is simply this: we will put back every dollar into Medicare that the coalition's rebate freeze took out— (Time expired)