AARON PATRICK: Peter Dutton is still struggling to overcome a Medicare scare campaign

When asked this week whether new Medicare clinics would bulk bill patients under a Coalition government, the Liberal candidate for the crucial Tasmanian seat of Lyons flubbed her answer. “So that’s something that we will need to be working out,” Susie Bower said.

Within hours the Labor Party had turned Ms Bowers’ ambiguous answer into ads that made it sound like the Coalition has a secret plan to undermine subsidised healthcare.

“The Liberals have let slip they will make Australians pay to go to a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic,” Health Minister Mark Butler said on social media. “Make no mistake, Peter Dutton is returning to his GP tax.”

Ms Bowers’ Labor opponent, Rebecca White, posted a video on Instagram making the same assertion.

Neither were true, according to the Coalition, which has promised it will not charge for the clinics - which treat minor illnesses and injuries - or close any. It plans to open more.

Ms Bowers, a former country councillor, did not know the answer and was hedging during the interview, according to a party source.

Labor’s best weapon

The mix-up in Tasmania was an example of how the Labor Party deploys what may be its most-effective weapon: a Medicare scare campaign.

Every few days, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese brandishes his own Medicare card, a prop designed to convince voters that only the Labor Party can be trusted with the national health system. He has declared the election a “make or break” moment for Medicare.

Mr Albanese and his ministers frequently claim Liberal leader Peter Dutton will cut Medicare subsidies to cover the $600 billion cost of seven nuclear power stations, even though the Coalition has said the price will be far less, and health spending will not be cut.

“It’s been the main tool that Labor has used to reframe the cost-of-living debate in a space that favours them,” said Kos Samaras, a Labor-associated Melbourne pollster. “They have been so successful that this is wining them the campaign.”

Turning point

On February 23, Mr Albanese and Mr Butler pledged an extra $8.5 billion for Medicare. The policy is designed to reverse a fall from a peak of 88 per cent to 77 per cent of doctors’ consultations that patients do not pay for.

Even though the Coalition quickly matched the policy, it was a turning point. A week after the announcement almost all opinion polls, which previously had shown the Coalition in front, flipped to the Labor Party.

The Liberal Party tried to counter the campaign with new policies, including a promise to increase subsidised visits to psychologists from 10 a year to 20, and spend more on suicide prevention. But the poll gap continued to widen the more often the Prime Minister talked about Medicare and Labor ads stoked fears of Coalition cuts.

“The Government clearly knows they are lying. They have been called out for lying. They keep doing it,” the Coalition’s health spokeswoman, Anne Ruston, said on Friday.

Warring ads

On Thursday, the Liberal Party published an ad that said Labor’s Medicare campaign had been “destroyed” when Mr Dutton pointed out that costs had risen under the Labor Government during their debate this week.

“Enough of the scare campaign, PM,” Mr Dutton wrote on LinkedIn. “As Prime Minister, I will continue to invest in key health services and a health system we can all rely on.”

The Labor Party ignored him. This week it launched ads alleging the Coalition “will cut” all Medicare urgent care clinics. The ads are geographically tailored for each state.

Most other Labor ads mention the Government’s plan to increase bulk billing, where the Government covers the full cost of a doctor’s consultation.

Mediscare memories

For Liberal Party officials, the ads have revived painful memories of Labor’s 2016 “Mediscare” campaign. Then-Labor leader Bill Shorten convinced half of all voters, according to one poll, that the Coalition planned to privatise Medicare if it was returned to government. The allegation was based on an obscure commercial contract for some administrative services.

The Coalition almost lost power. It did not sell Medicare.

On Friday, Mr Albanese visited a Darwin clinic with his candidate for Solomon, Luke Gosling. Speaking in front of a Medicare banner, the prime minister promised to open a ninth urgent care clinic in Darwin and upgrade a mental health clinic in Alice Springs.

He alleged $50 billion was “ripped out” of hospital funding when Mr Dutton was health minister 11 years ago.

The Liberal Party said the last Coalition government increased hospital funding 86 per cent and Medicare funding every year.