Tuesday, 31 October 2023

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (13:32): On Friday the Treasurer wrote to key stakeholders the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the AMA and the GP Alliance. What the letter does admit is that it is going to close GP clinics and medical clinics across the state. What it will also do is force up costs; it will end bulk-billing. It will force patients into busy emergency departments to seek basic primary care. This is not providing the access or equity of health care that this state needs and certainly those patients deserve. Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, who is the Australian GP Alliance deputy chair, said in a media report today – and I could not agree with him more – that the government’s logic was flawed. He said:

The letter was disappointing because it’s basically saying that we’re coming after the tax but if we’re sending you broke, we’ll bail you out …

The question is: why the hell are you doing it in the first place?

Quite right. Why on earth is the government doing this, applying this health tax to medical clinics across Victoria, when these experts and stakeholders have said 30 per cent of clinics will close, bulk-billing will go and it will force patients into busy EDs? The reason the government is doing it of course is because Victoria is broke. This government has sent debt spiralling out of control, and as a result the only solution is to tax everybody in sight. It is a flawed tax. The government needs to stop it.