Mr DUTTON (Dickson—Minister for Health and Minister for Sport) (15:23): I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I thank colleagues who are very interested in an important debate. I want to correct a lot of what the shadow minister had to say, and I want to inject some facts, strangely enough, into this debate. Much of what we heard from the previous speaker, the member for Ballarat, is Labor rhetoric and part of a scare campaign, and we saw the opposition misleading the public again in question time today. It is worth having a sober look at the actual statistics and what the figures provide for in this budget, in black and white. The total expenditure goes up each and every year in this budget. The money we are spending on health and in hospitals goes up each year. The reality for this budget, quite opposite to that which was proposed by the member for Ballarat, is that we put more money into Medicare again this year. In fact, we will put about $19½ billion into Medicare this year. That has gone up by 42 per cent over the past five years. But if we do not take some action over the next 10 years, Medicare will go up by an amount that will mean we will spend $34 billion a year—so $20 billion this year, growing to $34 billion in 10 years' time. If Labor believe that is sustainable, then they should put that on the record. Certainly state Labor health ministers do not believe it is sustainable. Certainly it is the case that the two independent reports commissioned by both the Rudd and Gillard governments advised Labor that spending on health at its current rate each year was unsustainable. And so what have we done in this budget? What we have said in relation to hospitals is that we will increase funding to hospitals by nine per cent this year, by nine per cent next year, by nine per cent the year after that and by 6½ per cent in year 4. Labor want to betray the 2½ per cent reduction from nine down to 6½ per cent growth as a cut, which is quite tricky, and politically the member for Ballarat may well get away with that. No doubt people listening to this debate today will think, 'On the member for Ballarat's contribution, the government's cutting funding to hospitals.' But we are increasing it by nine per cent each year over the next three years, and we have put it at 6½ per cent in year 4—6½ per cent when our economy is growing at five per cent, which I think is quite reasonable. It is a lot more than what is happening in some other developed nations around the world, including in New Zealand for example, and I believe that that is putting it on a sustainable path. That is at the same time as the government is trying to pay down Labor's debt. We are borrowing money each and every month to pay down just the interest bill, let alone the capital of the debt that Labor ran up. Bear in mind that they were only in government for six years, but ran up debt approaching $667 billion. And anybody in the gallery today, listening to this broadcast at home, those who do their own household budgets know you can only spend more money than you earn each year for so long. You cannot continue to spend more than you earn; you can until you run out of savings, until the bank takes the house, but then the whole operation closes down. So, yes, we are trying to pay down Labor's debt and yet still increase spending each year, but by a more sustainable path. I think that is perfectly sustainable; I think that is perfectly reasonable. The honourable member opposite, the member for Ballarat, talked about the introduction of Medibank and Medicare. It is quite interesting to reflect on some of the comments that were made by Labor when Labor was a strong party. The Bill Shorten of today is no Gough Whitlam of yesterday. That is the reality. The Leader of the Opposition is not a patch on former Labor leaders, including Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke. I will tell you what Gough Whitlam had to say in relation to Medibank. I think it is very instructive. It was one of the guiding principles of Labor during the fifties, sixties and seventies. Gough Whitlam had this to say: The government is determined … to give all Australians access to high quality health care at reasonable cost. 'At reasonable cost'. He never claimed that you could give everything to everybody for free, which is what this Labor opposition is pretending. Four out of five presentations to doctors today are for free; 80 per cent of those presentations are free. Now the taxpayer works hard and pays taxes so that we can provide those services for free to four out of five people. Ms Burke: What is the Medicare levy then? Mr DUTTON: The Medicare levy? 'The Medicare levy' comes from the former Speaker in this place. It was not even good enough to be put up by her good friend Julia Gillard, the former Prime Minister. Let me correct that: the former Speaker, the member for Chisholm, says that somehow the Medicare levy should cover what we spend on Medicare. Let me give her a basic lesson in economics: we raise with the Medicare levy about half of that we spend on Medicare each year. The problem is—the basic economic facts escape Labor—that the growth rate of Medicare is much greater than that which we collect on the Medicare levy, so over time Medicare becomes even more unsustainable. The basics need to be understood by the Labor Party opposite before they can make a proper contribution to this debate. Gough Whitlam got it right when he said that health care needed to be 'at reasonable cost'. He did not propose that 80 per cent of services, when you go to the doctor, should be for free. So what have we said in relation to this budget? Much the same as what Bob Hawke said: 'It's very difficult to suggest a co-payment … is going to create great hardship.' What did Bob Hawke suggest? Bob Hawke suggested and implemented a co-payment of $3.50 which incidentally, had it been indexed— Ms Butler interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Griffith is not in her seat and not entitled to interject. Mr DUTTON: over the course of the last years, would be about $6.40 today. What is the government proposing today? A co-payment of $7. But, importantly, we are retaining bulk-billing not for four out of five services but for those people who cannot afford a co-payment themselves. That retains the principle of universality, which is what this matter of public importance is supposed to be about; it was mentioned only once during the course of the shadow minister's contribution. But universality means that you can provide support to those to those who cannot afford health-care costs themselves. We do that. It is central to the principle of the plan we have on the table. We say people who have the ability to pay $7 should pay it so that we can keep Medicare sustainable. If you want to adopt Labor's proposal that everything is free for everyone, and we continue to rack up debt on the credit card, it will fall over. Australians are not stupid. They saw through the Rudd and Gillard governments and they see through Bill Shorten and his opposition as well. At the next election we will look the Australian public in the eye and say that yes, we have had to take tough decisions during the course of the first 12 months of this government, and no doubt over the course of the next two years, to rectify some of the waste and deficit that Labor racked up; but at the same time we have sustained a Medicare system which will serve us for decades to come. I do not have any problem at all saying that to the Australian public. But at the next election the Leader of the Opposition and the Labor Party will have to say to the Australian public that they are not prepared to make changes which will make Medicare sustainable. If we want to have that debate I am more than happy to have it. If we had abolished bulk-billing altogether I would think the member for Ballarat might have a leg to stand on. If the member for Ballarat could stand up here and say, 'You have wiped out the ability to provide for those who are in most need', then she would have a fair debating point. But that is not what is on the table. The government has said we will take care of those who are most needy. Where Labor's greatest hypocrisy lies in this particular debate is around pharmaceuticals. Labor says it is completely unreasonable to ask people who can pay a simple a co-payment to pay it. But at the same time it was Labor that introduced a co-payment in the pharmaceutical system for those on concession cards. You would not know it from the contributions of those opposite. When the sickest, poorest Australian needs to fill a prescription at the pharmacist does Labor say that they can bulk-bill and have that prescription for free? No, they do not. They say to that person, 'You will pay $6.10 for the first script and every subsequent script, and the safety net does not cut in until you reach about 60 scripts.' So an equivalent co-payment in the medicine system is $360. Labor presided over that system all the way through the Hawke years, the Keating years and the Gillard years—or the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd trifecta disaster for this country. They sat on that policy and they charged the sickest and poorest; yet they come in here and suggest that a $7 co-payment to keep Medicare sustainable, while still protecting those who cannot afford the $7, is somehow unreasonable. They are completely wrong on this topic. Do you know what else they do in the states? If you go around state-by-state, the Labor party charges co-payments in relation to dental and other emergency services. We will highlight that as the weeks and months go along. The Labor Party will have to explain at the next election why it stands for a Medicare which is unsustainable.