Peter Dutton’s father suffers heart attack before first leaders’ debate

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton accused Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of pulling stunts by constantly waving his Medicare card as he fought back against Labor’s scare campaign by promising no cuts to healthcare at the first leaders’ debate of the election campaign.

But a family emergency hung over the event in western Sydney after Dutton’s father, Bruce, was taken to hospital in Queensland, having suffered a heart attack hours earlier. He is in a stable condition.

Opposition leader Peter Dutton and his wife Kirilly leave Wenty Leagues Club, the western Sydney venue for the first debate. Credit: James Brickwood

News of Dutton’s father’s condition broke minutes before the party leaders were due to make their case to 100 undecided voters at the televised Sky News event on Tuesday night. In a tight election contest that has Labor pulling ahead slightly in the polls, the battle for the suburbs in both Sydney and Melbourne will be decisive come May 3.

Dutton took to the stage as planned, and both leaders played to the crowd as they pitched their plans for hip-pocket relief and housing. Albanese attempted the occasional zinger and scored the first laugh of the night after Dutton asked the prime minister whether he had led the biggest-spending government since Gough Whitlam’s in the 1970s.

“In the most recent budget, you’ve seen the debt go to $1.2 trillion and deficits,” Dutton said. “This is the highest-spending government in 40 years.”

Albanese shot back: “Well, that’s not true, except for the one that you were a part of during COVID.”

The record for government spending outside World War II was set in 2020-21, at 31.4 per cent of GDP. The second biggest spend was in 2019-20, at 27.7 per cent of GDP. Both were due to the Morrison government’s efforts to deal with the pandemic as Australia suffered its biggest economic downturn since the 1930s.

But the rivals’ strongest words were saved for exchanges over healthcare as Albanese mounts an attack over Dutton’s “mystery cuts”, while the opposition leader promises no cuts while pointing out that GP visits have become more expensive since Labor came into government.

Responding to an audience question about paying gap fees at the GP – now more than $40 on average – Albanese pointed to his government’s $8.5 billion election promise to extend bulk-billing bonuses to all adult patients, as well as Labor’s rollout of 87 urgent care clinics across the country that offer free services.

“If your kid breaks their arm, or you need urgent assistance, but it’s not life-threatening, that [urgent care clinic] is the place to go, and that’s made an enormous difference. And all you need is this little thing here,” Albanese said, waving his Medicare card.

That prompted a strong reply from Dutton. “I’ve heard the prime minister run this stunt before with ‘you only need your Medicare card’. It’s not true. Bulk-billing rates have reduced under this government. And that’s the reality. It’s there in black and white,” he said.

Dutton said the prime minister was mounting a “Mediscare” campaign but that “if he was being truthful with you, would say to you that, yes, the cost that you’re paying out of pocket has increased under this government”.

Bulk-billing rates started falling after 2021 and hit their lowest point under the Albanese government as a six-year Medicare rebate freeze, health inflation and COVID aftershocks made doctors’ visits more expensive while government funding did not keep up. That decline has since stalled under Labor’s bulk-billing incentives.

Albanese dodged that attack by turning the conversation to Dutton’s record as health minister in the Abbott government.

“You tried to abolish bulk-billing by having a fee every time people visit a doctor or every time people visit an emergency department. That’s what you did as health minister, and when you couldn’t get that through, you froze the Medicare rebate, which stayed frozen for six years,” he said.

“That’s why we are having to deal with this.”

Dutton, in a rare explanation of his decision-making from 2014, said he wanted the system to serve all Australians. “Our desire, in relation to the whole health system, was to make sure that we had a strong general practice, because it’s the experience of all of us,” he said.

“We were trying, and we will always do our best, and that’s why we’ve supported the funding now to build general practice.”

Dutton ended the debate by confirming there would be no cuts to health under the Coalition.

But Albanese quickly leapt onto it. “Peter said that there’d be no cuts to health. But they said that last time … and they did everything that they said they would not do.”

The audience crowned him the winner, but only just, with 44 backing the prime minister, 35 picking Dutton, while 21 left undecided.

With James Massola, Mike Foley, Shane Wright

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