Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to discuss the future of Australia's healthcare system and, indeed, the very future of our nation. I want to start by reflecting on the turmoil of the past few days. It was only a little while ago that we had a government that promised that it would be grown up, that it would be transparent, that it would be accountable; that it would not deliver any surprises. And I have to hand it to them because they have managed to achieve, in a year and a half, what it took the Labor Party three years to achieve—they have a government that is chaotic, it is dysfunctional, it is divided, and it is confused. I keep hearing excuses from the coalition: they blame the 24-hour news cycle—it is too hard to get a message out; we hear about the 'corrosive influence' of social media, something the Prime Minister I think calls 'electronic graffiti'; we hear about the mess of the last government. The Prime Minister went as far as to say: 'It is not my fault; it is the Australian people's fault.' In Victoria, he said that the defeat of that government occurred because of 'a fit of absent-mindedness'. 'It is not my fault. It is the Australian community that got it wrong.' Well, Madam Acting Deputy President, I have to tell you that the people in Victoria—indeed, the people of Australia—know exactly what they want. There is nothing absent-minded about it. They are very clear about how they feel about this government.

It is time to stop making excuses. It is time to start taking responsibility for the fiasco that is the Abbott government. The Prime Minister could have done it last week in that landmark speech to the Press Club. Instead, what did he do? He went into his bag of tricks: fearmongering on terrorism and foreigners. He is a one-trick pony. Exploiting fear does not work forever. You can run around the country with your billboards, talking about boat arrivals; you can run around with your fluoro vests and your hard hats, talking about the impact of carbon-pollution pricing on the community—it does not work forever. The Chicken Little routine does not work forever. And do you know what? Even worse than that, on those things that they campaigned so hard on, the tide is turning. The Prime Minister must have realised, when he was embarrassed at the G20, that the show was over. Here are a few tips: start being honest. Be up-front. Be straight with people. Keep your spin for the cricket pitch! Don't promise one thing in opposition and another thing in government. The Prime Minister thinks his only job is to fight the Labor Party. He is the Prime Minister—he should start acting like it! He is not in the boxing ring at Oxford any more. That style of adversarial, negative, oppositional politics—people hate it. I hate it. We are sick of it.

Your approach to health epitomises everything that is wrong with this government. At the heart of this government is a lack of integrity. They promised 'no cuts to health care', but their first budget had a GP co-payment and a freeze on Medicare rebates—decimating and dismantling Medicare and making it harder for people to go and see a doctor. What really grates is that you spent years berating the previous government for what you are doing now. But the broken promise is not the worst of it; the policy itself is an absolute stinker. It is based on a lie, and it will not work. Government keeps talking about how unsustainable Medicare is, that we cannot afford it. What rubbish! We have a great health system—it is affordable and it is sustainable. Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, though! We spend less on health than the OECD average. We spend about 9.1 per cent, by most recent estimates. The average is 9.3 per cent. Look at the most recent report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare—health expenditure is growing at its lowest level since records began 30 years ago. Why does it work so well? Why have we got such a great health system? Because Medicare is a break on prices. It does not mean private health insurers set prices. It does not mean doctors set the price. Government sets the price, and it is a brake on health inflation. And you guys want to dismantle it. Talk about economic vandalism!

But why do you do it? You are a government that is dominated by ideologues, and you put your own ideology ahead of evidence. This stuff might have read well in some 1960s free-market textbook, but it does not work in health care. Look at the model you aspire to, the US. They spend 17 per cent of their GDP on health care, and what do they get for it? They get a two-tiered system. What is the biggest cause of bankruptcy in the US? Not being able to afford to pay your medical bills. They get worse health care and they pay more for it—and you want to take us there! You want to make it harder for people to see a doctor, you want to shift costs on to emergency departments, and you want to do it to those people who can least afford it. What a tragedy it is that, on Closing the Gap Day, some of the communities that will be worst affected are those Aboriginal people right around the country who are trying to access health care.

I hear these stories that millionaires should pay for their health care. Well, guess what? They do. It is called 'progressive taxation'—they pay more into the system and they are just as entitled to be bulk-billed as anybody else is. It is an efficient system—stop trying to dismantle it! And then I hear the Prime Minister talk about being the best friend that Medicare has ever had. It is a reflection of a man who is so isolated that his best friend right now is a government institution. That says it all. Perhaps even worse for a government that prides itself on competence is that not only did you lie about the policy, not only is it a bad policy, but you cannot even get it right. We are up to version 3. We had version 1. We had version 2 over the summer. Version 3 has been announced by the Prime Minister and we are going to be up to version 4 soon. This is not a health policy; these are a series of thought bubbles dreamed up by a bunch of blokes smoking cigars and drinking Grange. That is what they are.

What do we do from here? There is an opportunity for the Prime Minister right now if he wants to salvage his leadership. He has got to press the 'reset' button and ditch these reforms. He says he is going to listen. Well, guess what? There is a wealth of information out there. There are inquiries, there are reports, there are recommendations. There is a Senate committee talking to experts and looking into what other reforms will improve an already terrific health system. That is going on right now. Let's look at addressing the cost shifting that goes on between state and federal governments rather than making it worse—which is what this plan does. Let's look at reforms around the private health insurance industry and stop this massively inequitable, unfair and ineffective redistribution that is going on right now in the health system. Let's get primary care working better. Let's complement fee-for-service by paying doctors for achieving good outcomes. We can do that. This is a conversation that the AMA, the medical community in general, are up for. Let's start closing not the gap but the chasm that exists between Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people. Today we have heard that we are not doing enough to get that right. Let's start looking after people in the community and providing the supports and structures that mean simple things do not end up in a hospital where it costs us all more. Let's reduce some of the wasteful spending that currently occurs in the health system.

These are all positive reforms. Our door is open. Come and talk to us. Talk to the experts. At the very least, you would think that a government with a bunch of crossbenchers in the Senate would pick up the phone and ask, 'Is there anything we can agree on?' Well, guess what? Not one phone call. Not one approach from the previous health minister. I hope things will be different under the new health minister. I am not optimistic, though. The government is now on borrowed time. The Prime Minister has his last chance. He can start listening to the Australian community—he can listen to doctors, to experts—and he can start doing the things in health care that will take us forward, not backwards. If he does not do that, it will be either his own colleagues or the Australian community who make the decision for him.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a week it has been! The Australian people were not shocked at all when they heard from the Prime Minister's lips on Monday that 'good government starts today'—520 days after taking office, and we are still waiting. I can assure the Prime Minister today that the Australian people are in agreement that every day of your prime ministership has been bad government. The Prime Minister's days may be numbered, but I have been saying all week that the Liberal Party may take Tony Abbott out of the Lodge but you cannot take unfair policies out of the Liberal Party.

Whether the Leader of the Liberal government is Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop, it is still the same dysfunctional government. It does not matter who leads this government, because they all voted for the unfair budget and the attacks made on the unemployed, older Australians and pensioners and because of all their broken promises. The Prime Minister promised the Australian people a stable, mature and adult government, but he delivered exactly the opposite. How can the Australian people trust a government that said it would not cut education spending? How can the people trust a government that said it would not introduce any taxes? Yet it has done just that.

Australians know this government is not working for them. They know that this government cannot be trusted because it is a government built on lies. Tony Abbott promised the Australian people so much. He promised stable government, but the Liberal government's disunity and chaos make this commitment by Tony Abbott his biggest lie yet. Yesterday, respected former Premier of Tasmania, Tony Rundle, said that the leadership spill on Monday was amateur hour from a government that is in trouble. Mr Rundle, I actually agree with you. He went on to say:

Abbott is a fighter and survivor but he’s swimming against an ebb tide that may be too strong for even his iron man skills.

The Australian people know too well the record of this heartless and arrogant government. The evidence was the proposed GP tax, $100,000 university degrees, cuts to pensions, $80 billion of cuts to schools and hospitals, a petrol tax, and cuts to the homeless and domestic violence prevention services. The Liberals' unfair budget and their broken promises are hurting Australian families to the tune of $6,000 a year, and not one member opposite will acknowledge just how unfair their budget was. The finance minister, Senator Cormann, said on Insiders on Sunday that not one member of the Liberal Party believes any aspect of the budget is unfair. That shows how deluded and out of touch they really are.

Take the government's attack on Medicare. Let's be honest: it is in their DNA to destroy Medicare. They have a record of tearing up good public policy. Even the AMA and GPs across the country have slammed their proposed new tax on doctor's visits. But we have to give them credit: this is a government that has energised the GPs in this country to mount a campaign. That is how concerned GPs were about this heartless and out of touch, arrogant government. This Liberal government fails to understand that the Australian people want a government that supports their community, that cares for the people and invests in people and jobs. Australians do not want a government that leaves people behind.

In my home state of Tasmania, Liberal member for Bass, Andrew Nikolic, has supported every single harsh measure handed down in this budget. In the last two weeks alone during the ongoing leadership instability and chaos of this Liberal government, he spent his time leaking stories to the media which have revealed him to have been begging his colleagues to stay united. Instead of working for the people of Bass, Andrew Nikolic has been feeding the Liberal instability. The saddest aspect of Mr Nikolic's contribution to his community is the fact that he has stood by while his own government has delivered harmful policies to the people of Bass. Where was Mr Nikolic when the government closed the Launceston tax office and cut 20 jobs? He could not be found.

Why isn't Mr Nikolic standing up for the people of Bass and for the great state of Tasmania? He has sat back while the University of Tasmania has contemplated raising student fees, slashing courses and abandoning research. Mr Nikolic has stayed silent. Tasmania has said 'no' to the government's attacks on the universities, attacks that Mr Nikolic is supporting. Where was he when the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, pulled the plug on local businesses and households receiving world-class broadband? Where was Mr Nikolic when the government decided to cut funding to homeless and drug addiction services at Anglicare, Colony 47, UnitingCare and Mission Australia in my state? Where was Mr Nikolic when Tony Abbott vowed to close the National Joblink? Where was Mr Nikolic when Tony Abbott came to Tasmania and told young Tasmanians to leave the state if they could not find a job? He was silent. Obviously, he was in total agreement with this arrogant and out of touch Prime Minister. No wonder the knives are out for him.

Where was Mr Nikolic when the country was debating a fairer pay deal for the armed forces? He remained silent. At every event in his community he is espousing his great record within the Defence Force, but he failed to stand up for those men and women. Where was Mr Nikolic when the government handed down a budget which took away pension concessions and changed the indexation of the pension so that pensioners received less support to deal with the costs of living? He continually attacks me in the local media, saying that I am lying and misleading the community, but we know, and so do Australian pensioners know, what they did. If it were not for the state Liberal Party coming in to do a patchwork to try and help Tasmanian pensioners, they would be in even worse dire straits.

Mr Nikolic has stood silent while this government has continued to hurt the people of Tasmania. Although Mr Nikolic has obviously been out there supporting the Prime Minister in their chaos and disunity this week, he also has stood up in his community and said that he supported the Prime Minister giving a knighthood to the British Royal Family. That is how arrogant and out of touch Mr Nikolic is. We also know that he is obsessed with anyone in our community that challenges his view and expresses a different view about this unfair budget that they brought down. He has been unrelenting in his personal attacks and putting pressure on people who dare to critique this budget. One example was that, as we know, there was a Facebook page where people were expressing their views about his performance, and what did he do? He threatened those individuals that he would go to their employers and complain. That is what he did. What is even worse than that is that now he has actually done that to a constituent, a well-respected member of our community, Dr Michael Powell, who is a well-respected lecturer at the University of Tasmania. He dared to write letters to both the North Eastern Advertiser and the local newspaper in Launceston to question Mr Nikolic on what this government has been doing. So what did our federal member do? He went and tittle-tattled to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Tasmania. What was he expecting the vice-chancellor to do? Slap him on the wrist and say, 'Naughty boy; stop writing letters and challenging the federal member for Bass'? How outrageous. He also grapples with the concept that three decades ago—that is 30 years ago—this particular gentleman ran for the Labor Party in the state election. Oh, my goodness! He is not allowed to challenge the unchallengeable member for Bass! How outrageous. What a glass jaw this member has.

But it is even worse than that. Mr Nikolic has been challenged to debate Dr Powell in any public forum anywhere in the electorate. But, no, he is not prepared to do that because he knows the policies the government are bringing down through their budget, even though they are backflipping and doing whatever it takes to get some of their budget through this place, are unfair. He will not turn up to a public debate, because he knows he does not have a leg to stand on, and so do the people of Bass.

Further, Mr Nikolic is out there every other day claiming credit for what the former Labor government did and what the former member for Bass, Geoff Lyons, a hardworking member who actually contributed to his government, did. Mr Nikolic went up to the DSTO in Scottsdale. Once again, it was former Labor minister Snowdon and Geoff Lyons who brought that redevelopment funding to Scottsdale. And on he goes.

Today, Mr Nikolic showed his lack of respect for the people in this country when he walked out while the Leader of the Opposition was giving his speech on Closing the Gap, following the Prime Minister's and by all accounts paying him credit— (Time expired)