Australian voters are receiving fake text messages from Medicare telling them not to vote for Malcolm Turnbull

MANY voters received text messages on election day claiming to be from Medicare. According to the government, they’re all fake.

ANTI-Turnbull text messages claiming to have been sent by Medicare on election day have been labelled fake by the government.

Health Minister Sussan Ley is warning people to beware after news.com.au alerted the department Australian voters had been sent the texts.

News.com.au has seen a number of text messages sent this morning to voters, under the name “Medicare”, discouraging votes for the government.

“Mr Turnbull’s plans to privatise Medicare will take us down the road of no return,” the messages read.

“Time is running out to save Medicare.”

Got this text from 'Medicare' today. Clearly from ALP. Deceit of the highest order. How is this legal? @leighsales pic.twitter.com/53aIjUaIjq

— Brad Robinson (@DrBradRobinson) July 2, 2016

Anyone else get a text from Medicare today? @abcnews #ausvotes pic.twitter.com/kLv4zf5WKy

— Monique Ross (@rossmonique) July 2, 2016

The government department responsible for Medicare, the Department of Human Services, as well as the Health Minister’s office, confirmed the messages were fraudulent and had not been sent by Medicare.

In a statement sent to news.com.au, Minister for Health Sussan Ley called the messages “desperate and deceitful”, and called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to urgently rule out Labor or affiliated unions were not behind them before polls closed today.

“Australians can spot a fake when they see one and Labor’s Medi-scare campaign is the biggest fake of all,” she said.

“The best way for Australians to unsubscribe from Labor’s Medi-scare campaign is to Vote 1 for their local Liberal and Nationals candidate today.”

Health Minister Sussan Ley has called on Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to ‘urgently rule out’ that Labor or affiliated unions were behind the messages. Picture: Kym Smith

The content of the text is in line with Labor’s key campaign message that a vote for Labor is a vote to “save Medicare”.

But a spokesman for the Labor campaign told news.com.au the party was not responsible for the bulk messages and denied knowledge of the last minute text campaign.

The health minister had earlier in the week been critical of the Labor-affiliated Australian Council of Trade Unions, which distributed one million replica Medicare cards in protest against the Turnbull government’s GP rebate freeze.

A spokesman for the ACTU told news.com.au it was not behind the text campaign.