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

I would like to add a few words to the debate on the Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) (Repeal) Bill 2025. While the coalition does support the passing of this legislation and will support the bill passing through the Senate, I think it is worth putting on the record, from my perspective in Tasmania, the dishonesty that the government has managed the health portfolio with over the last three and a bit years. In fact, their approach to health in particular has followed the same path for a considerable period of time. We've had 'Mediscare' campaign after 'Mediscare' campaign perpetrated by the Labor party going back as far as 2016. The real problem is that they're prepared to run a scare campaign but they're not prepared to base it on fact.

The last campaign, where the Prime Minister stood up on 70-odd occasions and said the only thing that you will need to go to the GP is your Medicare card, demonstrates how low the Labor Party are prepared to go in misleading the Australian people with respect to health services. We know that 23 per cent of Australians will need more than their Medicare card, yet the Labor party, on 71 occasions, perpetrated the falsehood that all you would need when you went to the GP was your Medicare card. The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing have put on the public record that 23 per cent of Australians will need more than their Medicare card; they will have to produce their credit card as well. Yet this is not what the Labor Party say when they're standing up publicly.

They like to try to deflect the blame from themselves. They like to attribute the blame to the coalition. Yet the statistics are very clear that Medicare bulk-billing was 11 per cent higher under the coalition than it was under the Labor Party. They try to deflect the blame to somebody else, as they do in so many things. We heard this during question time today, when the Labor Party were talking about home care. They neglected, in any of their answers, to talk about the fact that the waiting list for home-care packages had dropped, from an unacceptable high of 129,000, down to 28,000—a reduction of over 100,000 people on the waiting list. The waiting time had dropped, from an unacceptably high number, to 30 to 90 days for a home-care package at any level. Under the coalition, someone looking for a high-needs package would get it within 30 days. None of that was mentioned by the government. Dishonestly, it was not mentioned by the government today under questioning. They try to pretend that the period of time where significant progress was made on home-care packages doesn't exist.

The great shame that the Labor Party should feel is that they squandered the hard work and the investment from the Australian people into home-care packages. The number of people on the waiting list got down to 28,000, and the waiting time was 30 to 90 days. There are now 87,000 people waiting. It has more than tripled under Labor because of their lack of investment. The waiting time has blown out, from 30 to 90 days, to 15 months for a level 4 home-care package.

It's outrageous. They continue to perpetrate the falsehood that they care about senior Australian people, yet their actions completely and utterly belie that. It's simply not true. They throw around phrases and clauses from the interim report and the aged-care royal commission, but they neglect to say in respect of the aged-care royal commission that the Labor Party still has not put on the record a full response to the royal commission. They still have not done that, and they won't. They don't have the courage and they don't have the moral fibre to stand up on the fact that their complete failure on home-care packages has seen the waiting list blow out more than threefold, from 28,000 to over 87,000. Then we learned last week that there are 120,000 people who are waiting for an assessment, which means those waiting for home-care packages number over 200,000 people. It is an absolute outrage that that is occurring.

But we see that all through the Labor Party's management of the health system. We've seen that all along. They're not prepared to stand up and take responsibility for their own failures. They refuse to acknowledge that the bulk-billing rate has dropped from 88 per cent to 77 per cent under their watch. They try and blame it on someone else. They try and deflect to somewhere else. It's a continuation that they perpetrate as part of what they're doing.

Then they had the gall to go to the election making the promise that the only thing that you'd need when going to the GP is your Medicare card, not your credit card. That's a promise they made 71 times, and yet they know that it is not true. There were no qualifications around the promise. There's plenty of evidence to demonstrate that the commitment was, 'All you will need to go to the GP is your Medicare card, not your credit card.' But, even as the Labor Party said that, they knew it wasn't true, and now there's every excuse under the sun as to why it's not the case.

The coalition has a very proud record with respect to supporting high-quality medications going into the Australian health system. In fact, we undertook a major review of medications available on the PBS, and we listed more quickly than the Labor Party has a whole range of medicines. We shouldn't forget that the last time they were in government they stopped listing because they ran out of money because they can't manage a budget. We are seeing the spending. Australians should be very, very cautious about the unbridled spending. The government don't want any guardrails. They don't want any discipline placed around the way they spend the Australian people's taxes. They just want to keep on rolling it up. That's what they do—spend. And, of course, then they will come after more of your money. Spend and tax—that's what the Labor Party do.

With respect to the Health Insurance (Pathology) (Fees) (Repeal) Bill 2025, while the opposition support this particular piece of legislation, we offer a sincere word of caution to the Australian people. We need to be very, very careful when the Labor Party are speaking in respect to the health system and the promises that they make with respect to the health system because there is a sordid trail of broken promises from this government of broken promises in relation to health, aged care and energy prices. The list goes on and on.

In relation to being open and honest with the Australian people, we heard earlier in the day that the pricing for the NDIS has been sought by this chamber, and the government won't release it. They promised to be an open and transparent government. How's that going? I can tell you my constituents who are concerned about what's happening with the NDIS don't believe that that's the case. They are very concerned about what's going on. Quite frankly, releasing that information is fundamental to the trust the Australian people have in the NDIS system in the same way it is with releasing hospital costs done by the same organisation and also in the same way that the costings assessed for the aged-care system need to be released so that people can understand what the assessment is and then benchmark that against what's actually being supported through the system.

This history of broken promises from the Labor Party, this litany of broken promises from the government of broken promises, needs to be well and truly understood by the Australian people. The coalition will continue to do what we've always done: work responsibly with regard to measures that are brought into this place, making sure that the government is put under pressure to be open and transparent where they should be with costings for the review of NDIS payments and other things, including aged care. In that context, we'll also support this piece of legislation, and I'm pleased to put my contribution in that context onto the record tonight.