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Election 2016: Shorten defends $1 billion medicines promise against government's 'Labor spendometer' gibes
By Heath Aston and Jane Lee
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has defended Labor's $1 billion promise on prescription medicines against Coalition taunts that he is putting more policies on the unfunded "spendometer".
Labor is increasingly coming under fire from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and senior Coalition ministers for announcing new spending without commensurate cuts.
Mr Shorten has promised to officially scrap the Coalition's shelved plans for a one-off rises in Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme co-payments.
On Sunday, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said Mr Shorten had become "quite cavalier" with his spending promises and Mr Turnbull claimed Labor's budget "blackhole ... is getting deeper and darker".
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten meets with Katherine Loupis and her 15-month-old daughter Eleanor, during a visit to the Drummoyne Medical Centre in Drummoyne, NSW on Sunday. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
"He thinks it's a joke. You saw him just the other night on the Central Coast laughing about more millions of dollars on the spendometer," Mr Turnbull said.
"Well, we take government spending seriously. Government must live within its means. We have a health system, the best in the world, and we support it with more funding every year. He has no way of paying for these additional expenditures, no way at all other than higher taxes and he's yet to tell us what they will be."
Senator Cormann said Labor was spending the $50 billion tax cut for business "over and over", saying the decision not to match the government's corporate tax relief would result in "fewer jobs, less investment and less growth".
But Mr Shorten said the central election debate over spending and cuts was "all about choices" and claimed Treasurer Scott Morrison's business and income tax cuts and decision to leave negative gearing untouched amounted to $100 billion in government spending over the next decade.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a press conference under a tree he played in as a child after he visited the Taste Orange food and wine festival in his electorate.Credit: Andrew Meares
"When Scott Morrison says that somehow the Labor Party is doing the wrong thing in terms of making spending and commitments or scrapping unfair decisions that this current Liberal government has made on attacking Medicare, it is all about choices," he said.
"When Scott Morrison says, we do not have the money, therefore we must price up the cost of prescription drugs to pensioners or we cannot find our schools properly, or that GPs are going to have to charge [patients] a tax to come and see the doctor, it is all about choices."
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann says Mr Shorten has become "quite cavalier" with his spending.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Pressed on whether Labor would make cuts to health to help fund for its spending promises, shadow health spokeswoman Catherine King told Sky: "We're not proposing to make major cuts in health because the growth in health (expenditure) has already slowed down because of measures that (Labor in government) put in place."
She cited Labor's introduction of means testing for private health insurance rebates when in government.
Mr Shorten pledged on Sunday not to increase Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme co-payments beyond regular indexation.
The promise will cost the federal budget $971 million over the next four years and $3.6 billion over the decade, according to costings Labor has obtained from the independent Parliamentary Budget Office.
Mr Shorten promised no changes to the safety net thresholds beyond regular indexation. Under the government's proposal, the thresholds would increase by 10 per cent every year for four years.
That would mean patients would have to spend more on medicines before they qualified for free or deeply discounted scripts.
Health consumer advocates and pharmacists welcomed Labor's announcement.
Chief executive officer of the Consumer Health Forum, Leanne Wells, said if passed, the increases would most affect the chronically ill and families with "modest incomes".
"Experience with a previous big increase in PBS medicine charges showed that 5-10 per cent of people on low incomes did not get the medicine prescribed by the doctor because of increased cost."
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia's president Joe Demarte, agreed, saying access to pharmacist services could be compromised if the Coalition continued to seek savings in the PBS.
Mr Turnbull reiterated the Coalition's commitment to a one-off $5 rise in the general patient co-payment and an 80 cent rise in the concessional co-payment, despite shelving the plans when it failed to secure Senate support.
Yet Health Minister Sussan Ley said the government would "look at the policies after the election, and I certainly recognise that in the medicine space, there are difficult decisions to make about the payments for medicines."
The price of almost 400 medicines actually went down last month under a PBS reform package struck by Ms Ley and supported by Labor. The government predicts medicine prices will drop again in October under further changes.
The Coalition has made nearly 1000 medicine listings since coming to office, worth about $4.4 billion
Meanwhile, unions will on Monday launch a fresh assault on the government's corporate tax cuts, with TV ads in target marginal seats.
"We have been campaigning and door-knocking in communities across the country and people tell us they would rather a government that funds schools and hospitals than tax cuts for big corporations," said ACTU secretary Dave Oliver.
With Adam Gartrell