Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (14:31): I thank the honourable member for his question and for his great interest in improving the health system in Central Queensland. It is very obvious to the Australian public by now that the coalition government is not only the greatest friend that Medicare has ever had but we are the only friend in this place that Medicare has. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: There will be silence on my left. Mr DUTTON: The Australian public is quickly working this out, and I will tell you the reason why. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: The minister will resume his seat. We will have silence. Mr Husic interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Chifley is included in that. The Minister for Health has the call and we will have some silence to listen to him. The Minister for Health. Mr DUTTON: The changes we make in this budget will make Medicare sustainable for a generation to come. Labor's approach was to rack billions of dollars up onto the credit card, to give services away for free, pretending that that could happen forever. Let me say this: for a population of 23 million people, Medicare provides 263 million free services per year, and Labor was tracking Medicare onto an unsustainable basis. What Labor did to Medicare is what they did to the Australian economy: they racked up debt and put it on an unsustainable basis. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: Members will desist. The Leader of the Opposition will desist. An honourable member interjecting— The SPEAKER: Nobody implores me; I can hear the noise myself. Mr DUTTON: What we will do in this model is have $5 of a co-payment going into a $20 billion medical research future fund to find the cures of tomorrow and to make sure that we can have a sustainable health system going forward. Two dollars of the $7 goes back to GPs— Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: The Minister for Health will resume his seat. This place is sounding like a rabble. Now, there is disagreement on this point, which is quite obvious. However, there are the people listening as well, and they want to be able to hear the answer. I would ask for some silence so that we can conduct this question time in some sort of decorum. I call the Minister for Health. Mr DUTTON: Ten years ago we were spending $8 billion a year on Medicare; today we are spending $20 billion. It is projected in 10 years to go to $34 billion. Over the last five years we have increased expenditure by 42 per cent. You can live in this fantasy land that Labor is in, that somehow you can continue to rack up $1 billion each month of borrowed money to pay off the interest bill alone. You can pretend that, with an ageing population, you can give all of these free services away. Or you can take a responsible approach and you can put Medicare on a sustainable path. That is what this government have done. We will make sure, as our population ages, as we march towards a country that is going to have 7½ thousand people diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer's per week, that we can afford to— Ms King: How are they going to get a diagnosis if they cannot afford it? The SPEAKER: There is no decorum in that interjection. The member for Ballarat will desist. Mr DUTTON: provide services for those people. That is the contrast between that incompetent opposition, who were dreadful government for this country, and this government, who will set up Medicare for generations to come. We will make sure we put Medicare back onto a sustainable path. People of the Australian public, I promise you, will not be tricked by this incompetent opposition.