Page 3291 - Week 12 - Thursday, 19 November 1992
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MR BERRY (Minister for Health, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (3.59): Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to talk on this important subject. What never ceases to amaze me is the gall of the Liberals when they talk about the provision of hospital services throughout this country. This is the mob that will force the whole of taxpaying Australia to subsidise private insurance companies to make them profitable and to subsidise the private health industry. The rest of Australia will be forced to pay for that. The Liberals will force people to take out expensive private hospital insurance, unlike the Labor Party, which guarantees access to everybody. The Liberals will force people into private hospital insurance just to make their friends more wealthy, but they will do it at the expense of the ordinary taxpayers across Australia. They have promised that they will subsidise private hospital insurance by way of the taxation system. They have said, "You will be given a tax deduction for private hospital insurance". That means that that will effectively go into the pockets of the private providers.
Medicare, since the early 1980s, has provided access to health care for all Australians. We are seeing the universal system of health coverage come under increasing attack from those who would prefer to see a strong and healthy private hospital system instead of a first-class public system. They do not care about the people who fall through the cracks. They want to go to a system such as that in the United States, where you have about 12 per cent of gross domestic product committed to the health system - a health system which provides only for the rich. That is a shameful position. Millions upon millions of Americans are not able to get access to ordinary health care.
That is not the case in Australia. We have a more socially-based health system which provides for the community across the board. But the Liberals would have it that we should go to a health system based on the American system, a system that has been described as the Kentucky Fried system and to which millions do not have access. The Liberals told me that they had no further speakers on this matter.
Mr De Domenico: We might surprise you.
MR BERRY: It would not surprise me if you went back on your word. I am not going to bait them too much on this matter. There are big holes in their health proposals, and they know it. The people of Australia do not trust them and will not cop it.
Currently, the Medicare agreement is up for renegotiation. Some of the States have been concerned about the declining Commonwealth contribution to hospital funding. The States have been contributing a greater share of public hospital expenditure against the background of a decline, in real terms, of financial assistance grants and increasing restrictions on Loan Council borrowings. The current Medicare agreement runs out on 30 June 1993. So, we will not be signing this Medicare agreement, as Mrs Carnell talks about it; we will be signing a Medicare agreement which runs from 30 June 1993.
The renegotiation of the Medicare agreement gives the opportunity to address some of these important matters. I attended the Australian Health Ministers Conference held in Adelaide on 23 October. The meeting was convened to discuss the principles of Medicare and to agree on a common approach to resolve funding matters. This most recent meeting of all Australian Health Ministers
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