CLUELESS NASH STILL DOESNT GET IT ON GP TAX

Tony Abbott’s bumbling Assistant Health Minister has again shown her complete lack of understanding of her portfolio, by using a visit to an Aboriginal Health Service to defend the GP Tax.
 
The South West Aboriginal Medical Service based in Bunbury, WA, has warned the GP Tax will reverse hard won steps to close the Indigenous health gap in the region, and lead to parents not being able to afford to give their children vital health.
 
As a result, the Service has declared it will not be able to levy the GP Tax on its patients, meaning it will take a substantial hit to its funding.
 
Fiona Nash told the Bunbury Mail she had been “listening very closely” to what she’d been told, but then instantly dismissed these concerns and continued to defend the GP Tax.
 
“Fiona’s Nash’s defence of the GP Tax in spite of everything she was told highlights just how completely out of touch the Abbott Government is on health policy, Shadow Minister for Health Catherine King said today.
 
“It highlights the Abbott Government is listening to no one – not the health experts not the health professionals, not even its own back backbench on what a disaster the GP Tax is for health care.
 
“Even when a frontline health service dealing with some of Australia’s most disadvantaged and poorest people tells the minister the GP Tax is a disaster, she still defends it.
 
“The GP Tax will act as a barrier to primary health care, preventing people from visiting a GP, leading to even greater health problems, and more hospitalisations.
 
“The GP Tax is bad for patients, bad for health care and bad for the Budget.
 
“It’s time the Abbott Government listened to the experts and scrapped the GP Tax.”