Ms CATHERINE KING (Ballarat) (09:52): Who could forget the 2014 budget—the lifters and the leaners? This is what the government would have us try and do. They want us to forget that 2014 budget—the budget which attacked the most vulnerable of Australians at every turn. The government want to try and paper over the fact that they had the lifters and leaners budget, that they tried to attack the most vulnerable of Australians. When it comes to health care there are two measures that this government still desperately believes in. One measure that government member after member stood in this place defending was the increase in the price of medicines for everybody, not just general patients but concession card holders as well. It was going to cost $5 every time you needed to fill a script at the doctor. This government decided and argued in this place that that measure was the most important thing that they needed to get through this parliament from the 2014 budget—that is, make it more expensive for Australians to access the medicines that they need. I would have to say it is not really a debate when the other side come in and look like they have had to suck on a lemon in order to get the words out: 'I move a motion that I really do not want to have to move.' It is not really a debate when the other side is not willing to defend itself or defend its measures, because we know at its heart it wants these measures through. It put them through before. It believes they are in fact good measures. The Prime Minister said they are measures of merit. If they have the opportunity, if they have a different Senate, if they do not have every single member of the Labor Party standing against them in the Senate, doing the hard work of convincing the crossbenchers that these are bad measures then this government would put every single one of the $13 billion worth of cuts to the most vulnerable of Australians through this parliament. We know that is what they want to do. The fact that the minister has been unable to defend this says absolutely everything. This is when silence says it all. They know that if they argue the case on this they are arguing exactly what is in their minds. They really want every one of these measures back. With the PBS increases—the cost every single time someone goes to fill a prescription: frankly, we already know that many Australians are not accessing vital medicines because of cost. We have pharmacists tell us every single day that people go into their pharmacies with a number of their scripts and they say, 'Which one of these can I afford not to have this week?' That is what is happening across the country now. Members in this place argued: 'Oh, it is hardly any money at all. It's not going to make a difference. There is already a co-payment on the pharmaceuticals—it's already a cost; we are just hiking it by $5 for general patients.' Often that is for people on very marginal incomes as well, or for people who are very sick. Sometimes you are talking about people who have 13 different scripts that they have to fill, and they are not concessional patients. Then of course you have concession card holders as well. The government stood in this place and argued that this was the most important measure. Of course the other measure that they are getting rid of—or so they say; we will see what happens in the coming months ahead—is the cuts to the Medicare Safety Net. Remember, the Medicare Safety Net and the Extended Medicare Safety Net are designed for people who, because of a very significant illness or something that has happened in their lives, have to access a large number of Medicare services—cancer patients, people seeking infertility treatment and people with very significant, severe and enduring mental health problems who are accessing Medicare at a substantial rate. That is not to say there are not problems with the Medicare Safety Net. We reached out to the government during the budget processes several years ago and said, 'We're happy to work with you, but what you need to do is tell us that you are not going to cut money—that you are actually going to help patients access the services that they need.' Remember: these are some of the sickest Australians who are bearing huge out-of-pocket costs through no fault of their own other than that they have got sick, and they have got really sick. Again, this is the measure in the health portfolio that this government believed was the most important thing it needed to try to get through this parliament. Frankly, you cannot trust this government when it comes to Medicare. On every single measure this government has gone after Medicare, because it does not believe in a universal health insurance scheme. At its heart it actually does not understand it. It really does not understand. Why do we have a universal health insurance scheme? Why does the World Health Organization hold Australia up as one of the countries that has universal health care that in fact is actually the envy of the world? It is because it is a scheme that is equitable. It actually goes to the heart of equity of access and it lifts everybody up. That is what a universal health scheme does. It makes sure that everybody contributes according to their capacity to pay and it then lifts everybody up, so the health of the nation actually improves. That is what has happened in this country because of Medicare. The fact that we have higher life expectancy than other OECD countries, even those with comparable systems, is something that we should be celebrating. But this government does not actually get it. What it thinks is, 'Well, really, if you can afford to pay you should get better services.' That is what they actually believe. 'And if you can afford to pay more and more then you should get access to better services. And why shouldn't you?' We all remember the GP tax and the co-payment, and now of course their glacial unfreezing of the Medicare benefit freeze. That is basically what they have done. Ms Macklin: You wouldn't want to be sick for a few years! Ms CATHERINE KING: Yes, you would not want to be sick for a few years under this government—exactly! That is what they have at their heart. They do not believe in Medicare. They never have, they never will and they can never be trusted with it. These zombie measures are called 'zombie' measures for a very good reason. They are the walking dead. They are not able to get through this parliament. But we know that if the government had any single opportunity to put them back here and to ram them through the Senate—if they got any inkling that any of the crossbenchers might think, 'Oh, I might change my mind'—they would be back in here in the blink of an eye. That is what the government would absolutely do. Their failure to defend this—they have probably gone in and had a bit of a tactical debate about how to handle this debate this morning and what to say: 'Less is more, less is more guys; this is really how we should manage this debate'—is because they know that the more they say on this, and the Prime Minister probably said a little too much today to Fran Kelly, the more they expose themselves for who they truly are. They truly are mean spirited. They want to attack the vulnerable at every single opportunity. The member for Jagajaga reminded us that they decided Mother's Day is the day that they are going to tell mothers: 'You're double dipping and you're frauds, when it comes to paid parental leave.' It is a scheme that has been ensuring that mothers and fathers are able to care for their children at their youngest, that they are able to continue to engage with breastfeeding—a significant and important health measure. We should be actively supporting and providing every opportunity for women to breastfeed their children. That is what paid parental leave is designed to do: provide that support in those early days. Here they go on Mother's Day: 'Let's attack mothers.' We know what this government truly thinks at its heart. We heard the Prime Minister, on Fran Kelly today, being asked the question: are these good or bad measures? I am sure he was holding his glasses as he spoke, clutching those glasses and waving them about, making sure that we all knew how sincere he really thought he should be at this stage. He said, 'It's really not a matter of whether they are good or bad. It's really not a matter of that at all.' In fact, it is a matter of that. These are bad measures. Labor has been saying they are bad measures from the start, when we had the lifters and leaners budget. It was bleedingly obvious that they were bad measures to everybody in the Australian community except for this government, because at its heart this government believes in them. It believes in these measures absolutely. This government wants to attack the most vulnerable in our community. It wants people on concession cards, some of the poorest in our community, to pay more for their medicines. It wants some of the sickest in our community to pay more when they try to access the services that they require. It wants to attack mothers who want to access paid parental leave, and in fact tried to demonise them as it got these measures through this place. At every single opportunity this government will attack the most vulnerable. We know that at any opportunity they have to reintroduce a single one of these measures that is what they will do. The minister's silence in this debate absolutely says it all.