CATHERINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND MEDICARE
MEMBER FOR BALLARAT
SENATOR CHRIS KETTER
SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND
ALI FRANCE
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DICKSON
PETER DUTTON’S HEALTH CUTS HURT DICKSON
Doctors had good reason to name Peter Dutton the worst federal Health Minister in 35 years: his cuts to hospitals and Medicare represented an unprecedented attack on universal health care in Dickson and around Australia.
Shadow Health Minister Catherine King joined Labor Candidate for Dickson Ali France and Senator Chris Ketter in Warner today to hear about the impact of Mr Dutton’s health cuts on his own community.
Mr Dutton’s Liberal colleagues rejected him last week. And his health cuts make clear that the people of Dickson should do the same at the next election.
Mr Dutton was a key architect of the horror 2014 Budget, which slashed and burned health funding. Instead of protecting public health care in Dickson and around Australia he offered it up like a lamb to the slaughter.
Measures he sought to introduce included:
- $57 billion in cuts to public hospitals – a figure confirmed by his own Treasury
- The GP tax that would have effectively ended bulk-billing and forced up the cost of seeing a doctor for everyone, including children and pensioners
- A rise in the cost of prescription medicines, including for pensioners and other concession card holders
- And a taskforce to explore the privatisation of the Medicare payments system – a dog of a policy that almost cost the Coalition the 2016 election
It was Labor and the Senate crossbench that opposed and killed off many of these measures.
However Mr Dutton’s Medicare freeze persists, ripping billions out of the health system and out of patients’ pockets.
As a senior member of the shambolic Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government, Mr Dutton has also supported subsequent health cuts – including $32 million still being cut from Metro North hospitals.
Mr Dutton’s record shows what he really thinks about health funding. He sees it as a pot of money to be looted and he doesn’t care if patients – even his own constituents – suffer.
Only Labor cares about delivering top quality health care.
MONDAY, 27 AUGUST 2018