THE HON PETER DUTTON MP

MINISTER FOR HEALTH

MINISTER FOR SPORT

Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Telephone: (02) 6277 7220 Facsimile: (02) 6273 4146




TRANSCRIPT

The Bolt Report
Network Ten
25 May 20124



ANDREW BOLT, PRESENTER: Later in the show we'll discuss this week's maddest
beat-up - the outrage over the wink the Prime Minister gave when a pensioner
attacked him and claimed she was so broke she had to work on a sex line. That wink
later. First, this talkback caller claimed the supposed health cuts in the Budget left
her miles worse off.

GLORIA, CALLER: I'm a 67-year-old pensioner, three chronic, incurable medical
conditions, two life-threatening... And I work on an adult sex line to make ends
meet... I've worked out - and my maths isn't crash hot - that it's going to cost me at
least an extra $850 a year with the increases in medical visits and medication.

ANDREW BOLT: $850 a year - a lot, if true. And there are a few of these scares put
out there by people with an agenda. For instance, Gloria, this phone-sex-worker
pensioner, turns out to be a radical lesbian activist from way back. Joining me is
Health Minister Peter Dutton. Thank you very much for your time.

PETER DUTTON: My pleasure, Andrew. Thank you.

ANDREW BOLT: Now, is Gloria, the pensioner with her three chronic conditions,
actually $850 a year worse off, as she claims?

PETER DUTTON: Well, the short answer is no. And the reason is because, Andrew,
in trying to strengthen Medicare and make it sustainable as we go forward with an
ageing population, we have kept bulk billing as a key feature. So we want bulk billing
to be about those people who can't afford to pay a $7 co-payment. And there's also
another safety net, where if Gloria, or whatever her name is, went to the doctor or to
get a pathology test or to get an X-ray, for argument's sake, over a 12-month period,
if she had ten services across those three areas, she would revert back to bulk
billing, because I'm assuming that she's a concession card holder. And bearing in
mind that in our country of 23 million people we have 8.6 million concession card
holders. I want to make sure that bulk billing is for those people that can't afford to
pay the $7, but still, for people like me, and for other people on higher incomes, I
believe that we can pay the co-payment and if we do that, we can keep bulk billing
for those who are most in need. So it's a good balance in the system. And, I fail to-




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ANDREW BOLT: Yeah, but I want to go back to her figures, Peter.


PETER DUTTON: -How those numbers can be right.

ANDREW BOLT: Sure, but I want to get back to her figures. $850, you're saying,
seven times the Medicare co-payment - thats $70. And then there's her drugs.

PETER DUTTON: So, her drugs will go up by $0.80 per script, from $6.10 to $6.90.
And it's then a safety net that will cut in at about 60 scripts. So I have no idea how on
earth Gloria can get to about $100. And thats assuming that she is going to be
charged a $7 co-payment in any case. It may be that her doctor still bulk bills, in
which case she will see no difference at all.

ANDREW BOLT: So thats - we are talking about $100-120, not $850. Alright. Well,
look, here is another high profile case of a sick person, someone with cancer, but
Labor Leader Bill Shorten presented, and told us she will be worse off, too. Have a
listen.

BILL SHORTEN, OPPOSITION LEADER: Why is it the Abbott Government thinks
that his only answer for the future of this country is to make Kerri pay more for her
drugs, more for her prescriptions, more to her specialists, more to her doctor?

ANDREW BOLT: Peter Dutton, how much worse off is this patient?

PETER DUTTON: Well, again, Andrew, I think one of the important safety nets that
we keep in the system going forward is to retain bulk billing. But we can't have
situations where 100% of people, when they walk through the doctor's door, are bulk
billed, or given the service for free. And my judgement is if Labor wants to continue
this process of putting everything on the credit card, giving every service away to
every person for free, Medicare will collapse under the strain. And I think for people
who are being bulk billed at the moment, who are on concession cards, who are
going to find it difficult to - I suspect they can have that conversation with their doctor
going forward in a similar way that they do now.

ANDREW BOLT: But she will be worse off, won't she?

PETER DUTTON: But we do have to make sure

ANDREW BOLT: This - the woman with cancer there will be worse off? I mean,
shes crying. What's the extent of the hit that shes going to get?

PETER DUTTON: Well, again, it's up to the doctor. And we retain the doctor's
discretion, exactly as operates today, Andrew. So the doctor could still make a
decision to bulk bill that patient, or the doctor could charge a $7 co-payment, up to
the maximum $70 over a calendar year. And there are other layers of support within
Medicare as well, not just the item numbers that people are charged. So it's a
complicated formula. But the fact is that there is plenty of support for people in this
situation in the system, and it may be that she's no worse out of pocket at all, and we



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will wait to see the decisions that doctors make, but we allow that discretion ongoing,
and in relation to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, well, Labor supported a co-
payment for pharmaceuticals for people on low incomes from the first script as far
back as the 1960s, and they have never referred to it as a tax. And it's part of the
reason that weve got a sustainable medicine system. We believe the same logic
should apply to when we go to see the doctor.

ANDREW BOLT: Well, talking about safety nets now, these changes to Medicare,
these $7 co-payments for going to the doctor, now that faces defeat in the Senate.
Youre obviously going to have to negotiate. Have you considered compromise, say,
a cap on families with children, families with three or four children, and so they don't
have to pay $7 for each child each time?

PETER DUTTON: Andrew, the Commission of Audit recommended $15. In New
Zealand the figure is about $17.50. We believe that we've struck a reasonable
balance at $7, $5 of which goes into the $20 billion medical research fund so that it
can help us find the discoveries and the cures for all of the diseases that will face an
ageing population over the next couple of decades, and $2 of the $7 goes to the
doctor in addition to the money that he or she will receive under Medicare now. So,
again, we believe that weve struck a good balance, and that weve got a good
proposal to put to the Senate. And I think as people realise that this package really is
about strengthening Medicare and making sure that we can go forward with a world
class health system, I think they will bring pressure to bear on the senators and ask
them to support what I think is a very worthy, well thought-out package.

ANDREW BOLT: So, no compromise no compromise for families with big children,
things like that - no compromise?

PETER DUTTON: Well, as I say, we believe weve struck a good balance. Weve got
the safety net still of bulk billing. Some people advocated that we should do away
with bulk billing altogether, but we haven't. And we've also, as I say, got the safety
net there, otherwise that once somebody hits ten services, they can revert back to
bulk billing if theyre a concession card holder or under the age of 16. So, we've tried
to strike that balance and we just can't, given that we're paying $1 billion back of
interest every month - yes, we would want to do more, but we just can't do more than
what we've proposed at the moment, given the level of debt that weve inherited from
the Labor Party.

ANDREW BOLT: Your $20 billion medical research fund - why don't you just pay
that money into cutting the debt?

PETER DUTTON: Well, we want to see medical research increase for a couple of
reasons, not just because by 2015 our country's 7,500 Australians each week will be
diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia, but also because it's a huge multiplier in the
job market. For arguments sake, tens of thousands of jobs in South Australia, which
is an economy thats transforming, will be created through




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ANDREW BOLT: Oh, but now you're talking like a Labor politician you know, let's
whack a bunch of money into job creation schemes. This is money that should really
be going off the debt, shouldn't it?
PETER DUTTON: Well, we're paying down $667 billion of debt. We pay about half of
that down as a result of measures within this Budget, Andrew. So I think we're
making a fair effort towards that. But one of the things that we do well as an
economy is medical research, were a world leader, we've got some amazing
institutes. And we believe very strongly that the $800 million a year that we've got
now can be supplemented, not by the capital of the $20 billion - we want to preserve
that and protect that from Labor - but by the $1 billion a year we can earn off that
interest. And that will remain in the guardianship of the Future Fund forever again,
so that Labor can't spend that $20 billion down. And, as I say, there are health
outcomes which are very, very important, but also the economy, I think, is enhanced
by the spend that we put into medical research.

ANDREW BOLT: Peter Dutton, there have been attacks on two of Tony Abbott's
three daughters already, by predominantly the left-wing media. Today, another
attack from Julia Gillard's partner Tim Mathieson, claiming falsely that Tony Abbott's
wife doesn't do charity work. Peter, is this politics as usual, these attacks on family
members of Tony Abbott?

PETER DUTTON: No, and clearly it's orchestrated. Bill Shorten has pulled out of the
media over the last few days and that's when these attacks have been launched,
quite deliberately, obviously, through Bill Shorten' office on Tony Abbott's daughters,
on his family members otherwise, and I think it's quite repugnant. Now, I don't know
Tim Mathieson. I met him only once when he brought some mates along to a cricket
game at the Gabba in Brisbane. And I saw him there just on that particular day. But I
know Margie Abbott very well, and she is a decent, compassionate person. She'd be
hurt by these comments because she's been involved in a lot of charities over a
number of years, particularly in relation to children, and I believe very strongly that
she is a person that has restored integrity to the highest office in the land, along with
her husband, and I believe very strongly that Australians would be offended by this
personal attack, and really now there is only one Abbott daughter left to attack and of
course Tony's mother as well. So I'm not sure when the feminists will stand up from
the Greens and the Labor Party that would otherwise feign outrage. I believe very
strongly that this is an orchestrated attack by Bill Shorten and it needs to stop.

ANDREW BOLT: Peter Dutton, thank you so much for joining me.

PETER DUTTON: My pleasure. Thank you, Andrew.

ANDREW BOLT: Coming up: How much trouble is the Government really in? The
panel is next.









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