Ms LEY (Farrer—Minister for Sport and Minister for Health and Aged Care) (15:25): I wish the member for Ballarat well in getting up the question time order so that she can put questions to me and the team during question time. I see that she has been the reserve question two days in a row, and I know that is that a tough position to be in. There are a lot of mistruths—and I do not like to say the word 'lie'; it gets thrown about too much in this place. But I want to take those listening to today's broadcast directly to Leigh Sales, 7.30 and the Leader of the Opposition. Leigh Sales asked the Leader of the Opposition, 'Can you put your hand on your heart and look Australians in the eye and say that the coalition has a policy to privatise Medicare,' and he would not and he did not. I refer everyone to the broadcast. After the Leader of the Opposition had refused to answer that question, Labor went into bat with its union mates—not on the building sites around Australia; we are dealing with that through the ABCC—robocalling elderly Australians late at night and then sending fake texts from fake accounts based on a fake proposition about something that was never going to happen and will never happen. This was even after the Prime Minister stepped out and made very clear that every element of Medicare that is being delivered within government by government will continue to be and that there is nothing in our approach that has ever been inconsistent with that. In spite of that, the scare campaign went on. It is disappointing, because it is actually not about what patients and families and people who voted recently want to hear about. What they want to hear about is our plans for the health system. What they should consider is Labor's record versus ours. Ms Catherine King interjecting— Ms LEY: Now the member for Ballarat keeps talking about cuts, and I say this: no government has invested more into Medicare than the Turnbull government. No government has overseen a higher bulk-billing rate than the Turnbull government. The Turnbull government is currently investing about $23 billion a year into Medicare. That will increase by $4 billion over the next four years. There were 17 million more bulk-billed Medicare services last year under the Turnbull government than during Labor's last full year in office—17 million more bulk-billed services. There are things that we say in this place, but the thing that I will not allow to go past on this occasion is the suggestion that we are going to put up the price of prescription medicines and make it harder for Australians to access medicines. The shadow minister and the Leader of the Opposition were in parliament when a previous Labor health minister refused to sign drugs for mental health, asthma and other conditions onto the PBS, because what you cannot pay for you cannot deliver. That Labor health minister was caught out, because, as we know, Labor cannot manage money. They can talk the big talk, but they cannot manage the dollars. On this occasion a Labor health minister decided that they were not going to list medicines. We have spent $4.5 billion on listing medicines in the last three years. We have listed three times as many medicines as Labor did in government. Ms Catherine King interjecting— Ms LEY: Deputy Speaker, I sat quietly and listened to the member for Ballarat— The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Coulton ): The member for Ballarat will listen. Ms LEY: I do not mind if she ignores me, but I do mind if she interrupts me. We have spent $4.5 billion in new listings. Every time you meet a patient in the pharmacies or the general practices around Australia you hear about how the listing of new medicines has made a difference to their lives, like the most recent one, something called Bydureon for type 2 diabetes, which is a once-weekly injection instead of a confusing regime of shots. We know that the first place in the world to list Keytruda for melanoma was Australia. We know that we could because we know how to manage the dollars responsibly and invested a billion dollars, so we are the only jurisdiction in the world that offers cures for hepatitis C to every single Australian without fear or favour, everywhere in every circumstance. Now the reason why we need a sustainable Medicare, the reason why budget repair matters for Medicare and the reason why you can always trust a coalition government when it comes to managing the dollars responsibly and managing the health system responsibly is demonstrated by these things—by the fact that we can to that. But at the same time, the figures that I have just given you about bulk-billing underscore the fact GP bulk-billing is higher—at 85.1 per cent—than it has ever been in our history, because we know that we are continuing this investment. Ms Catherine King interjecting— Ms LEY: The member for Ballarat continuous to interrupt. As I said, I do not mind if she ignores me, but I do mind if she interrupts. They ran around in circles like Chicken Little during the campaign saying, 'It's happening already. It's happening already. Doctors are stopping bulk-billing.' Well, the figures belie that. And we know that with these strong and sustainable bulk-billing rates, we will continue to see that. However, it is not just about that. Our reforms to health are about more than that: they started long before the election, they are continuing and they will land in a place that ultimately is very, very good for Australian patients. Our healthcare homes, a new model of remunerating doctors for general practice— Ms Catherine King interjecting— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Ballarat will listen in silence. Ms LEY: Our healthcare homes are something that was actually advised to Labor in 2009 but they ignored. So they could have done this but they did not. Doctors are coming to the table with a plan, with implementation and with ideas, and we are having a really positive discussion. Remember that the reforms that we are going to make in the delivery of health will be done in partnership with clinicians. That has been my determination every step of the way. It is not just about the bureaucracy. It is not just about things being done at a level that only looks at one side of the discussion. It is about recognising what is good clinical practice. It is about recognising that good clinical practice engages the patient, as our healthcare homes model will. It will engage the patient in their own care. Consider our reforms to mental health—almost $100 million more was added during the campaign for something that is a huge priority of the Prime Minister, that matters to every Australian, that sees a stepped care model available depending on where you are on the steps of treatment, that will see patients no longer discharged into a vacuum, that will join up the acute hospital setting with the primary care setting and that will wrap that care around the patient in a way that our mental health practitioners and the community sector tell us has not happened till now and is broadly welcomed, particularly in regional Australia. I want to come back to Labor's record because we have not seen a Labor government for a while. We want to know what Labor did. So this is what they did. When they were in government they cut over $6 billion from Medicare and medicines. I have just talked about the $4 billion that we are adding over the next four years. They cut $6 billion. They were actually the first ones to introduce a pause on Medicare indexation. You know how they did it. They attacked doctors' wages. A previous health care minister—I am not going to name her; she is still in parliament—actually said, 'Doctors make enough money. They can suck it up.' That is what a previous Labor health minister said. This coalition health minister says to doctors, 'We want to work in partnership with you. We know it's tough. We are dealing with Labor's debt. We are dealing with a fiscal situation and we want to work in partnership.' A previous Labor health minister—and I wonder if this shadow minister says the same thing behind closed doors—said, 'Doctors earn enough. They can suck it up. Let's not worry about that.' So that is what Labor did. We are talking about diagnostic imaging and pathology. Labor cut $1.4 billion from diagnostic imaging and pathology. Labor took out a billion dollars a year from Medicare for dental services and they put it in a means-tested scheme where it only helped a third of the kids. The member for Sydney has gone very quiet on that because she has actually recognised that what we have done is introduce the first sustainable public dental scheme that will make a difference at every level. Labor cut billions from the private health insurance rebate. That previous minister for health said, 'You know where I went to for my savings? I went to private health.' At one stage the private health insurance premium went up 30 per cent almost overnight and that Labor minister for health was proud of it. Talk about attacking patients. Talk about attacking families. Talk about not recognising how to build a sustainable system. There is plenty more. Labor broke a $57 billion promise on hospitals. They talked about it and talked about it, the member for Ballarat tried to get questions up everywhere she went and then all of a sudden during the campaign the Leader of the Opposition just stopped talking about it. The shadow minister stopped talking about it. Suddenly it evaporated. It was their promise and they broke it. We have a Medical Research Future Fund that will build to a billion dollars disbursements a year. That is a fantastic addition to actually find the cures for the future. What did Labor do in government? They tried to take out $400 million but then everyone caught them out, so they sneakily put it back. They waged war on future cures to diseases when they did that. They took money out of medical research. Shame, Labor, shame. They cut $1.6 billion from aged care funding without fixing the problem. They talked the big talk on mental health, but they actually wrote a road map to nowhere. We are working on the problems of everyday Australians. (Time expired)