Page 3580 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 8 December 1992
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Medicare Agreement
MR MOORE: My question is directed to the Minister for Health. Mr Berry, we have heard suggestions that costings on the proposed Medicare agreement, which have been flagged by Mrs Carnell, are inaccurate. That is a statement that you have made. Tell us what your estimates are of the cost of such an agreement to the people of the ACT.
MR BERRY: What has been said thus far in the debate about health costs demonstrates the lack of understanding by the Liberals, and in particular Mrs Carnell, about health funding. I do not know where she got her figures from; I would not have a clue - on the back of an envelope, I expect. I heard some talk about $9m being collected and - - -
Mr Humphries: Eight million dollars, actually.
MR BERRY: We can have a difference of opinion about whether you said $8m or $9m, but I thought you said $9m and the Commonwealth would keep $8m and we would get back only $1m. However, if you extrapolate $9m to the full collection of the Medicare levy in the Territory, it adds up to about $80m or thereabouts. If 0.15 per cent is $8m or $9m, then 1.4 per cent is something like $80m - so there you go.
We have the ridiculous situation suggested by those sorts of calculations that the only money we get back into the Territory is money for hospitals. Everybody knows that that is not the case - except Mrs Carnell, it appears. Some figures I have just had handed to me show that around half - 49 per cent - of the Australian total goes to the medical benefits rebate. On the face of it, that is about $4.9 billion. About 13 per cent goes to pharmaceuticals, some of which would go into the hands of Mrs Carnell, I expect. About 38 per cent, on the figures I have just had handed to me, which are fairly preliminary, would go to base hospital funding. Of the funding which comes to the ACT, about $68m goes to the medical benefits rebate, about $11.5m goes to the pharmacists, and about $52.1m goes to base hospital funding. It is all right to create a scatter and try to draw attention to yourself by - - -
Mr De Domenico: By not answering the question.
MR BERRY: No; by saying, "Look, if there is a 0.15 per cent increase in the levy, there will be $8m taken away and we will get only $1m back".
Mr De Domenico: That is right; you have got it right.
MR BERRY: You have not got it right. I support the increase in the Medicare levy - a very important increase - because it is a progressive tax. What essentially happens is that everybody pays in accordance with what they get out of the Australian society and they make a contribution to the health care of others. Those at the top end of town who can pay most pay a little more. That is a progressive tax, in my view, and it is to be supported. It is a progressive tax and something the Labor Party has always supported.
Mrs Carnell, now that she is a wage-earner in this Assembly, I am sure would be delighted to be making a contribution to the health of Australia generally. I am delighted to be able to make a contribution, and because I earn more than the average wage I pay a little more. I am proud to do that.
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