Champion, Nick, MP

Mr CHAMPION (Wakefield) (19:08): It is great to be up here in support of this bill, the Private Health Insurance Amendment Bill (No.1) 2014, and obviously to second the amendment. Of course, this bill utilises some $599 million worth of savings and that is why it is receiving our support. It is qualified support, of course, but it is receiving our support. This follows on from some $3 billion in savings that the previous government achieved by means testing the private health insurance rebate. That was a sensible thing to do and it contained the highest-growing area of costs in our health budget. That was a sensible saving, one that was bitterly opposed by those opposite—constantly and bitterly opposed—but one that, in this bill, they seem to be embracing. They seem to be embracing, finally, a sensible saving which is ploughed back into the health budget, ploughed back into the sorts of services that Australians expect. Of course, it has had absolutely no effect on private health insurance numbers, notwithstanding what those opposite said—the doomsayers and the people who were out there scaring everybody and telling everybody that it was going to be the end of the health system as we know it. Quite to the contrary, what we found was that savings were sensibly reinvested into health. In my electorate we saw a number of important cancer centres opened at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, the Gawler Hospital and the Clare hospital. People up in Clare, up in the country—and people further north in the seat of Grey—do not have to drive hours and hours and hours to get to the centre of Adelaide to receive chemotherapy services. It is a very, very important thing. I met people at the opening of those centres who proved to me just what a big difference it has had in their lives. Mr Ewen Jones interjecting— Mr CHAMPION: It is a sensible approach. I heard about what the member for Hume said, and I am sure the member for Herbert will get up, full of bravado, and talk about all of the government's programs: the GP tax and their cuts to hospitals. I just wish they had talked about them prior to the election. Of course, in their Our plan—Real solutions for all Australiansin section 16, 'Delivering Better Health Services', this is what the member for Herbert stood on last election, and it does not mention any of these things. It does not mention any of their broken promises—$50 billion plus in cuts to hospitals. You had better believe that will show up in Townsville. The GP tax: there was no mention of that in Real solutions at all. Of course, that is because those opposite do not want to own up to before an election, do not have the courage or the decency, to actually tell the Australian people their real plan, which is to destroy Medicare. That is always what they have been about. If we go way back to 14 February 1986 John Howard said that if the Hawke government: … had not been elected to office the Commonwealth Budget would not contain the absurd and bloated expenditures on Medicare that honourable members opposite have added. That is what John Howard said about Medicare. He was plain with people. On 21 August 1986 he said if elected he would: … put choice back into Medicare by a number of steps. Firstly, we will allow individual Australians to opt out of Medicare; that is, not pay the levy provided they take out private insurance. Secondly, bulk billing will be abolished except for such people as pensioners who really need it. That is what John Howard said. Say what you like about the former member for Bennelong, at least he had the courage and the decency to let people know what his true intentions were. When he finally did change his mind on Medicare, well, at least he had the gumption and the good sense to stick to his word. The member for Herbert and the Leader of the Opposition wanted to lie to people before the election—absolutely mislead people at the last election in order to get their votes. And then after the election we get this budget, cutting $50 billion out of health and the $7 GP tax. Of course, we do not have to go all the way back to John Howard. We can go back to Fightback! This is the document that led me to join the Labor Party. It politicised me no end. It is often forgotten by those opposite. They remember the GST—that is hard-wired into their brain—but they do not often remember that one of the reasons that John Hewson and the Liberal Party were defeated in 1993 was their all-out assault on Medicare. Remember page 7 of that document: Bulk-billing will be retained for over four million pensioners, health care providers and the disabled, but will no longer be available to other Australians. That is what they said in Fightback!This is the other point: A government monopoly on medical insurance will be abolished and there will be a provision for gap insurance in medical bills. On and on it goes. Later on in the document it explains their plans in some detail about how they intended to destroy Medicare. That was their intention. Their long-term aim is to commercialise health, to privatise health and to shift costs on to working families. That is not just going to be felt in Labor seats; it is going to be felt particularly in seats in the bush. They will feel it most of all. What we will have in this country is a system of health haves and health have-nots, and that will be determined by your income and by where you live. If those opposite were paying attention to this, if I was a backbencher on the government side and I was from the bush, I would be terrified about the impact of this. I would be hoping that it would be blocked in the Senate. I would not be putting my name to it if I was a government backbencher from the bush. We had the member for Hume in here proudly telling us about how charging people $7 to see the doctor is somehow going to help the plague of diabetes in this country. It is just extraordinary. There are $80 billion in cuts to health and education, and over $50 billion in cuts to hospitals. That will affect people in the outer suburbs. That will affect people in regional centres. That will affect people in the bush—you better believe it will. And there is the GP tax—$7 every time you wander in and out of the waiting room at your local GP, $7 every time you get a blood test. We now know the true effect that this will have on diagnostic scans. The Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association has told us exactly the effect of this. People will have to start paying up-front costs: for an ultrasound, $106 to $189, and the real cost that people will face after the Medicare rebate will be somewhere between $16 and $99; for CT scans, the up-front costs will be from $280 to $383 and the out-of-pocket costs $35 to $136; for X-rays, $45 to $92 up-front and the out-of-pocket costs $10 to $56; for an MRI, the up-front costs will be from $403 to $500 and the out-of-pocket costs $65 to $163. Mr Ewen Jones: Is this from the standard talking points? Mr CHAMPION: The member for Herbert is telling me that these are some things out of the talking points. They are not out of the talking points; they are out of the budget submission from the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association. Are you saying they are giving me talking points? I am telling you what is in their submission. I am warning the member for Herbert. I am telling him the effects of his policy and of the bill he has not seen. We have heard about the $7 co-payment, but have we seen the bill? Do we know how it will operate? Can any of those opposite provide me with some assurance about how it will operate? No, because the health minister is somewhere in this building, somehow sharpening up his plans for this disastrous policy of his. In case you are wondering how that might affect someone with rheumatoid arthritis who needs some scans, the up-front costs will be somewhere between $289 and $549 and the out-of-pocket costs $55 to $316. That would terrify the member for Herbert's constituents and they would be right to be concerned about it. My constituents would be concerned about it too. In the case of breast cancer, the out-of-pocket costs between $46 and $348 and the up-front $410 to $712. These are extraordinary figures, not out of some Labor Party talking points but out of the Australian Diagnostic Imaging Association's submission to a Senate committee on the budget. We know what is going to happen: 600,000 scans will be missed. What effect will that have on public health and preventative health? What kind of disastrous consequences will that have for individuals, for families and for communities? One million missed GP visits across the country will be missed and 500,000 the year after, with people presenting instead to emergency departments. Those are the consequences of the policies of those opposite—and it was not mentioned in Real solutions, you can be sure of that. On top of that, they are increasing the cost of medicines by $1.3 billion. They are cutting $368 million out of preventative health. How is that going to help the impact of diabetes and other diseases in our country? How will that work? They are deferring $398 million in public dental care, which will blow-out the waiting lists and leave those affected in pain, and compound their problems and their other health problems. We have had the debate on the dental bill and we know what Professor Newell Johnson said—'It is going to make it worse for people who rely on the public system.' Dr Karin Alexander said, 'The waiting lists are going to grow and you are going to have people sitting there in pain once again.' That is where the government are going on dental gentle. We know we have a system in dental care of haves and have-nots, thanks to the states and the fact that dental is not in Medicare, and that should concern every Australian. I do not care whether you are a Liberal voter or a Labor voter, whether you live in the city or the country, any time in public health you have a system of haves and have-nots based on your income and the geography of this country and your access to services that is not Australia. That is not decent. That is not the type of country I thought we were. On top of that, they are privatising Australian Hearing. That is what those opposite are intending to do—privatising an organisation that was created in 1947 by the Chifley government and expanded during the Holt years. It has been around for 67 years to help veterans and the sufferers of rubella with their hearing problems. Mr Frydenberg: It still will. Mr CHAMPION: We have the sorts of guarantees from the parliamentary secretary opposite and we know what they are worth. We know what your word is worth after the last election. They have dismantled Health Workforce Australia. So no more planning for our health workforce, no more planning for doctor shortages or nurse shortages or allied health insurance—all services that are so important out in the regions and out in the bush. We know that they have just abolished Medicare Locals at huge public expense, shifting boundaries, messing about with organisations which were just getting on with the job. I went out to Seppeltsfield for the Indigenous Marathon Project. Robert de Castella was there. We were all running. It was a very good program. Medicare Local was there, doing what they should be doing, talking about preventive health, and what are those opposite doing? They are closing it down. They are shifting the boundaries in another bureaucratic reorganisation. They have the gall to stand up in this parliament and tell us all that they are abolishing red tape—that is what we heard in the previous debate— well not for the doctors, not for pathology, not for diagnostic services and not in health. There is more red tape and more out-of-pocket costs than ever before. They are setting up entire billing systems which have not had to exist before. That is the record of those opposite in health. It should be terrifying the backbench on the opposite side. They should be terrified every time the health minister gets up and says, 'We're the best friend Medicare ever had.' If you think anybody believes that after the litany of broken promises, broken commitments made with a sense of completely bad faith, manipulative and wrong, you will not get away with it. At the next election there will be an army of Labor candidates campaigning against you, stopping you destroying Medicare. There will be more than a few doctors, more than a few nurses and more than a few people from the country who want to stop this assault on Medicare, this assault on the public health system and this assault on the Australian way.