Page 3881 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 15 December 1992
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The difficulty for those who provide public hospital services throughout this country is when people start to walk away from private services. That is the situation that we are confronted with now. If those opposite truly believed in market forces they would not complain about the fall-off in people privately insuring. They would not complain about people not using the private hospital system. There is an element of duplicity in the arguments which have so far been put. They say that this Government does not support the private health system and the private insurance system. That is quite untrue. I think it is up to the private insurance system and the private hospital system to look after themselves. They are out there in the free market and the Liberals opposite, I would expect, support them operating on a competitive basis.
Mr Humphries went on at length about access to hospital services. Of course, that is an important feature of Medicare. First, Medicare provides access to all on the grounds of clinical need, not - as Mr Humphries said - when you want to go to hospital. Secondly, there should be equity in service provision. Thirdly, the public will be informed about what they can expect under Medicare as public patients in hospital. Fourthly, eligible persons will be given choice to receive care and treatment free of charge as public patients.
Madam Speaker, the great contrast between what is supported by Labor governments and that which is proposed by Liberal governments can be found in the appendages to the Fightback package, which is falling apart at the seams. The Liberals propose to support the private sector by way of tax concessions to ordinary taxpayers throughout Australia. Who will pay for that? The Liberals say that they will pay the Medicare levy and provide extra taxation dollars to the private sector by way of tax concessions. So, everybody will pay. Even those people who do not use the private system will pay through their taxes to support the private system.
The aim, of course, is to improve profitability within the private sector. The Liberals have never made any secret about their philosophical position. They are more interested in profit amongst their supporters than they are about community services and the community service obligations of governments. The private sector have no community service obligations, as governments do. They are established for profit, and that is fair enough. The companies that insure people for private health care do it in the marketplace and they do it for profit, and that is fair enough. But you cannot support a system merely on that basis. You have to take into account the community service obligations of governments, particularly governments committed to social justice. That is why Labor governments throughout this country wholeheartedly support the Medicare approach, and no-one more than this Government.
Madam Speaker, on issue after issue you can expose the Liberals in their approach to health care. Take what the Liberals are doing in New South Wales. They are going to have - - -
Mrs Carnell: Did they close hospitals?
MR BERRY: They are going to close all right and not build a public hospital in Port Macquarie, handing it over to the private sector.
Mr Connolly: Flog it off.
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