Defence Portfolio

Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (19:16): I would like to address a couple of things there immediately. I have five minutes to be able to talk about the government's record on health, but it's almost impossible. But I would just like to say a couple of things there.

One is that the government is investing $25 billion extra in public hospitals to take the pressure off the public hospital system. The speaker before me mentioned a figure of $1,600. If you're paying $100 for a shower when you're on an aged care package, which is what some people are doing at the moment, it takes 16 showers for that $1,600 bucks to be used up.

And so the government's decision to move showers from independent living into clinical care will actually save an enormous amount of money for not just pensioners but also self-funded retirees who desperately need that clinical care. That's because it is the Labor Party and only the Labor Party and this government that really has the values which Australian people want, which is why they consistently vote for parties that that defend that defend Medicare.

It is inherent in the values of the Labor Party and inherent in the values of this government. And there are two things I'd like to say on that. One is no matter how hard workers fight on the shop floor for wages and conditions, which is something that they can achieve, there are some things that you need control of the government in order to be able to deliver for your community, and having control of the government to deliver good, affordable healthcare is one of those things.

The other thing I would say is that the philosophy of the Albanese government really, I think, is summed up by two things I've heard the Prime Minister say recently. One is that nobody is left behind and nobody is held back. But he also said, a lot more eloquently than I'm going to say now, 'When you come across a problem in policy, do you just throw your hands up and say, "There's nothing I can do about it?

I'm only the Prime Minister."' And so I think it is in healthcare, in aged care and in disability care that we see a government that is prepared to make the tough decisions but makes them through Labor values, which are about making sure that our community is looked after and always kept front in mind. The decision was a tough one. It cost a lot of money to fix bulk-billing.

But I have never, in all the time that I've been a participant or an observer of Australian politics, seen a policy have such an immediate and positive impact as the tripling of the bulk-billing rates for doctors who bulk-bill. Overnight in November in the electorate I represent, Forde, the number of bulk-billing clinics more than doubled from nine to 21. It is something which is on top of a commitment to provide cheaper medicines.

It is something that is on a commitment to spend more money for the PBS to fund all of the medicines which the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee suggests need to be funded. These are tough decisions that the government needs to make to be able to afford these things which benefit the whole community. Of course, it's not just in healthcare.

As I said, it is in aged care and disability care as well. We have in aged care one of the biggest demographic problems that an Australian society has ever faced. I don't know the numbers exactly, but these are the rough approximates to make the point.

Something like 10,000 people turned 80 in 2010. This year, something like 90,000 people are turning 80, and we're going to have that number again and again and again over the next 15 years or so. This is a cohort of people that have worked hard for this country and that deserve to have good, decent aged care.

I think that, with the decisions that the government has taken to see those waiting lists starting to come down in terms of assessments and the waiting lists coming down in terms of packages being funded, we are seeing some real progress there—again, founded in Labor values. Finally, on disability, yet again, it took a Labor government to introduce the NDIS, and it's going to take a Labor government to fix it, because all of those problems that we saw exist in 2018 as the NDIS began to grow scaled up with the NDIS as the NDIS scaled up in itself.

Problems that could have been dealt with easily in 2018 have been left to this government to deal with now, where they going to cause much more anxiety in the community than they would have if they were dealt with at the time. Again, it takes a Labor government to make tough decisions. But, with a Labor heart, they are decisions which are grounded in what's best for the community, and I think that the government's record on health is an excellent one.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Wilkie ): I thank the actually quite eloquent member for Forde for their contribution.