Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher

SALLY SARA, HOST: Well, nine out of ten GP services will be bulk-billed by 2030. That’s what the Federal Government is promising as a part of an $8.5 billion Medicare funding boost that will form the centrepiece of Labor’s federal election campaign. The Government says the package will extend the bulk billing incentive to all adults, not just children, pensioners, and concession card holders. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has unveiled the policy at a campaign rally in Tasmania over the weekend in a speech laden with dire warnings about the risk to health system posed by the Coalition and Peter Dutton, who he described as the greatest threat yet to the future of Medicare. Katy Gallagher is the Finance Minister and the Minister for the Public Service. Katy Gallagher, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast.

SENATOR THE HON KATY GALLAGHER, MINISTER FOR FINANCE: Good morning, thanks for having me on.

SARA: Senator, the Coalition came out and matched this policy dollar-for-dollar hours after Labor announced it. Does this neutralise your argument that only Labor will strengthen Medicare?

GALLAGHER: No, I don’t believe so at all and I think all we have to do is go back and see what happened when Peter Dutton was the health minister and was in charge of Medicare. We saw freezing of indexation payments to GPs, we saw a GP tax try to be imposed, we saw cuts to hospitals – $50 billion worth of cuts to hospitals, I remember because I was health minister at the time in the ACT. And I think we judge Peter Dutton on his record, and his record as health minister is about cuts and reducing services and cutting back Medicare. And you know, some of the problems we have with Medicare right now, some of the pressures that people have been seeing when they’ve been going to see a doctor, they don’t happen overnight. They happen as a result of those six years of freezing of income for GPs.

SARA: There are some complications, of course, with the time of COVID and we can see that bulk billing rates have gone down now. They’re coming up slightly under Labor. Do you accept that there are significant structural problems to Medicare that need to be dealt with?

GALLAGHER: Well sure, I accept that that freeze to the indexation arrangements for six years, which was never addressed and we are now addressing through the changes we have made in the previous Budget, in this Budget, and in some of the work we’ve been doing with Urgent Care Clincs and with the workforce, are about addressing those structural pressures. As I said, they don’t happen overnight in the healthcare system. It takes time for those pressures to come and really hit patients when you see it, and that’s exactly why, ever since we came to government, we’ve been investing in the rebuilding of Medicare. I think when we came to government, many of the doctors’ groups were advising us that Medicare and, bulk billing in particular, was in freefall. It’s taken us a couple of years to get these investments starting to show that that’s tracking around and improvements and this significant, very significant and important, almost essential, investment in Medicare that was announced by the Prime Minister yesterday will significantly help that as well.

SARA: Labor is pledging to spend billions more on Medicare, on childcare, on women’s health, NDIS and infrastructure upgrades. How are you going to pay for it?

GALLAGHER: Well, you’ll see us continue to roll out our responsible economic management that we’ve done since coming to government. We’ve seen a nominal $200 billion improvement to the Budget, we’ve had two surpluses, we’ve paid down Liberal debt by $170 billion, and that’s saving us billions of dollars in interest. And that means we’re making room in the Budget for these really important programs and services. At the same time, as you said in your question, we’re reforming a couple of areas including aged care and the NDIS, which is, again, allowing some room in the Budget to deal with those pressures. So, you’ll see that continue. I mean, the approach that the Treasurer and I have taken and the Prime Minister through his leadership is, how do we repair the Budget in order to make sure that we can provide those cost-of-living assistance, and Medicare is one of those, to help households, particularly over the last couple of years. And we’ll continue to do it.

SARA: Are you going to raise more revenue or are you planning bigger deficits to fund these promises?

GALLAGHER: Well, I think you’ll see, again, the approach that we’ve taken. We’ve found savings. We’ve found reprioritisations within the Budget. We’ve stopped programs that weren’t delivering or haven’t got continuing investment in those. And we’ll continue to do that. I mean, we’ve taken, I think in every Budget, we have put in some small revenue measures, you know, to ensure that we are keeping pace with some of those investments. And we will release all of our costings and all of those documents in the leadup to the election, all through the Budget and then obviously through the election campaign.

SARA: Both the AMA and the College of GPs say that when it comes to these Medicare reforms, what’s really needed is an overhaul of the rebate system rather than just the incentives, so that there’s adequate funding for longer consults. Has the Government rejected those calls?

GALLAGHER: Well, we’ll continue to work with stakeholders, as you would expect, Sally. Part of the investments that we’ve worked up for this election campaign and announced yesterday have been worked up in consultation with health stakeholder groups. But there is extra funding in this for longer consultations. We accept that when people with chronic conditions, with more complex health conditions, are presenting, that you need to make sure that those payments are keeping pace with the cost for doctors and that is included in this package. As is extra investment in doctors in the health workforce, as is extra investments in those practices that decide to go fully bulk-billing.

SARA: Just briefly on another issue, on Friday we spoke to the former Treasury secretary, Ken Henry, who said the current tax system is robbing young Australians, and he says that there needs to be significant change including income tax thresholds needing to be indexed to inflation. Are you open to that conversation?

GALLAGHER: I saw those comments from Ken Henry. And I think I go back to my points about how we have been repairing the budget so that we can invest in the services and address some of those pressures, particularly for young people. So, that’s why we’re investing in housing, that’s why we’re investing in student debt relief, in things like Fee-Free TAFE, because we know that those areas are areas that are really important to young people, you know. And certainly, through our tax changes and the tax cuts that we did for every Australian taxpayer, we recognised that we needed to give back through the tax system and again, you’ll see that continued approach where we can. It’s a whole range of balancing of priorities across the board. Services, investment, and making sure the budget’s in shape so that we can do that.

SARA: Katy Gallagher, thank you very much for joining Radio National Breakfast this morning.

GALLAGHER: Thanks so much, Sally.