QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (14:56): I am very pleased to be asked about the historic investment that our government is making to repair the damage inflicted on Medicare and inflicted on bulk-billing by those opposite during the long period where they froze the rebates available to doctors and saw the rate of bulk-billing in freefall.

It is simply true that, at the time of your government, bulk-billing rates, according to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, were in freefall. Senator Hume: They were at 88 per cent! Senator McALLISTER: The numbers cited by Senator Hume were cooked up by relying on the bulk-billing rates that were produced by COVID.

In fact, it had never been harder to see a doctor, and it is on that basis that we are making the investment we are making. The PRESIDENT: Senator Ruston? Senator Ruston: President, on a point of order on relevance, I don't believe that Senator Askew was asking about anything that the minister is actually contributing at the moment.

Could you maybe draw her back to the questions around bulk-billing? It was a specific question about out-of-pocket costs on bulk-billing, not something that happened historically. The PRESIDENT: The minister is being relevant to the question.

Senator Askew, first supplementary?