E&OE…
Subjects: Labor’s rehashed health announcement, Morrison government’s record investment in health
RAY HADLEY:
It’s good to have your company, we go straight to the Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, he’s on the line.
Minister, good morning to you.
GREG HUNT:
And good morning, Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, I thought, as [inaudible] would have said it was deja vu all over again when I picked up the Australian this morning very early, and then I got a call from your office, you were attuned to the same thing I was attuned to.
It looks like Anthony Albanese, he stole all the lines from that American President movie all those years ago, is now stealing ideas from Kevin Rudd.
GREG HUNT:
Well, exactly. So for those that don’t know, there was a disastrous policy under Kevin Rudd called super clinics.
They didn’t build half of them, then those that they did, they didn’t run to the hours that they promised, they didn’t bulk bill at the levels that they said, and it makes a massive threat to your own general practice. That’s the biggest thing.
Of all the things that you could do in health, repeating the failed super clinic program is the one that is most surprising.
It’s a really dangerous step for the reason that it threatens general practices around the country.
They tried it once, it failed, and now they’re trying it again.
And by contrast, by focusing on all the general practices around the country, we’ve had a massive increase in bulk billing from 82.2% to 88.8% under us, or nearly nine out of ten visits to the doctor.
Bulk billing means you can go for free. And that’s what we’ve focused on right around the country rather than undermining your general practice, which is what they’re doing.
RAY HADLEY:
Well, you just think that someone’s sitting around, they toss up this idea to try and take the pressure off what happened on Monday, they google super clinics as I did this, morning, just to refresh my memory because it was 13 years ago, in fact, 15 years ago when it first was discussed in 2007.
And then 2009 showed that it failed. Another story, two years later, we get to 2011 and 2013, a Brisbane GP super clinic promised by Kevin Rudd in 2007 was still not open, six years later, in Brisbane, despite $13.2 million being invested in the facility by the Federal Government.
I mean, surely to goodness someone gets him and says: ‘look, let’s come up with another idea because this is rehashing one that didn’t work, Anthony.’
GREG HUNT:
Well, there is a genuine debate amongst some of our team, whether or not this shows that Mr. Albanese is worse at health than he is at economics.
We thought he had some problems with the unemployment rate, but I’m making a fair case that he’s worse at health than he is in economics. But there are others who say that that couldn’t be the case. But it is really surprising.
You know, one of the things that that that we’ve done, we’ve got record Medicare investment, up from $19 billion to almost $36 billion, record bulk billing rates and we’ve created telehealth and made it universal and permanent with 100 million services.
I reckon, almost every one of your listeners, they or their family or their friends would have used telehealth not just once, but on many occasions over the last two years.
It’s the biggest change in Medicare since Medicare was created. But it’s for everyone, everywhere, forever.
RAY HADLEY:
Okay, thanks for your time, as always talk soon.
GREG HUNT:
Cheers Ray.
RAY HADLEY:
That’s the Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt.