Shadow Treasurer says Coalition ‘won’t get in the way’ of Labor’s proposed $8.5 billion bulk billing GP plan

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor says the Coalition “won’t get in the way” of Labor’s proposed $8.5b bulk billing GP plan to allow more Australians to visit a doctor but says the move is “cleaning up the mess it has made”.

He indicated the Opposition would consider matching the proposal while speaking on Sky News on Sunday.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will launch the policy on Sunday in a major pre-election pitch that aims to lift bulk billing rates to 90 per cent, up from the current 77.7 per cent — the largest funding injection into Medicare for 40 years.

The Coalition is likely keen to avoid an election fight over health after Labor’s 2016 “Mediscare” campaign stoked fears about cuts to Medicare or privatisation of the service, which came close to toppling the Turnbull government.

“We’re not going to get in the way of Labor cleaning up the mess that it has made,” Mr Taylor said.

“What should have happened is, we should have kept the gains or the benefits that we’ve had when we were in government — that higher level of bulk billing, that lower level of out-of-pocket. But Labor has failed.”

Mr Taylor said the Labor Government had not explained how the government would pay for the measure while the budget was in deficit.

But Treasurer Jim Chalmers told ABC Insider’s the proposal had already been partially funded in the mid-year-budget update.

“$5.4billion of the$8.5billion that we’re announcing today, we already provisioned for in the mid-year budget update,” he said.

“This shows what’s possible when you help engineer a $200 billion improvement in the budget. You knock out those two surpluses to pay down Liberal debt.”

The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine welcomed the Government’s commitment to strengthening general practice, particularly in rural, remote, and First Nations communities.

They described the policy as “history making” and crucial for improving affordability for patients in a cost-of-living crisis but also to allow GPs to keep their doors open.

Mr Albanese is expected to hold a campaign-style rally in Launceston on Sunday where he will formally announce the policy.

Labor is expected to spruik the measure as a cornerstone of its re-election bid and talk it up as a legacy defining commitment.

Labor has used the announcement to attack Mr Dutton’s record as health minister in the Abbott government, which included attempts to cut Medicare rebates and introduce a mandatory fee for GP visits.

“Peter Dutton in 2014 tried to abolish bulk billing altogether,” Health Minister Mark Butler told Sky News on Sunday.

“When he couldn’t do that, when the Senate blocked him, doctors opposed him — instead, what he set about doing was effectively to strangle bulk-billing slowly by freezing the Medicare rebate.”

Mr Butler added that Federal Labor’s bulk-billing GP plan will include support to improve the junior doctor pipeline.

Across the next four years $617m will be offered to train more doctors and nurses to fill an anticipated shortfall of some 5500 GPs over the next decade.