Birmingham says Rudd’s Morrison ‘bulldoze’ lies ignore the facts

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham has slammed as “lies that ignore the facts” Kevin Rudd’s claims that Scott Morrison had “bulldozed” Medicare, aged care and the NBN.

Claims made by former prime minister Kevin Rudd that Scott Morrison has “bulldozed” Medicare, aged care and the National Broadband Network have been undermined by the Coalition‘s record policy investment, with Finance Minister Simon Birmingham slamming the “lies” which “ignore the facts”. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham has slammed as “lies that ignore the facts” claims made by former prime minister Kevin Rudd that Scott Morrison had “bulldozed” Medicare, aged care and the National Broadband Network.

As the opening speaker at a Labor Party rally in Brisbane on Sunday, Mr Rudd hit out at the Prime Minister, who had claimed he would change his approach to governing if the Coalition were re-elected on May 21.

Mr Rudd said Mr Morrison had “bulldozed” Medicare, aged care, disability care and climate care and had “bulldozed then buried” the NBN.

In contrast to the former Labor leader’s claims about Medicare, funding for the publicly funded universal health care insurance scheme will grow to $31.4bn in 2022-23 from $19bn in 2012-13 under the last Labor government.

Likewise on the NDIS, the Morrison government has invested $157.8bn over four years and has made no cuts to the scheme.

Average plan budgets have increased by 4.5 per cent per annum for all participants over the preceding three years to December 21.

Senator Birmingham in response said Mr Rudd’s “lies” ignored the fact that Mr Morrison had increased Medicare bulk billing, added $19bn to aged care, overseen an increase to the National Disability Insurance Scheme to 600,000 participants and was expanding the NBN.

“Kevin Rudd was a prime minister who gave Australia higher taxes and weaker borders, while Scott Morrison has delivered lower taxes and stronger borders,” Senator Birmingham said.

“Kevin Rudd is a living, breathing reminder of why Australia can’t afford Labor and Anthony Albanese.”

Aged-care funding is also tipped to reach a record $34.7bn by 2025-26, an increase of 161 per cent since Labor was last in government.

During the 2007 election campaign, Mr Rudd promised a $4.7bn NBN would be completed within five years.

Six years later, Labor had connected 51,000 premises to the fixed-line network.

A 2013 co-strategic review found that the rollout would have taken until 2024 to be finished and would have required some $72.6bn to complete.

Mr Rudd could not be reached for comment.