PETER FEGAN, BREAKFAST: Well, the federal government has promised free doctor visits by 2030 in a major pre-election promise. Labor will spend $8.5 billion across four years to commit to universal bulk billing, which would make nine out of ten GP visits free. Not bad. The Prime Minister said this yesterday, quote, I want every Australian to know they only need their Medicare card, not their credit card, to receive the healthcare they need. Joining me on the line to discuss it a little further is the Federal Aged Care Minister, Anika Wells. Minister, always nice to have your company.
ANIKA WELLS, MINISTER FOR AGED CARE AND MINISTER FOR SPORT: Always great to speak.
FEGAN: Now, it would seem it's a case of anything you can do I can do better, because the coalition has announced a record $9 billion investment, literally two hours after you did it.
WELLS: And I think they asked us to rush back to Parliament to implement it, despite the fact it doesn't actually need legislation. And I would say the umbrage in having to go in and clean up their mess, only for them to say, please clean it up faster is not lost on me.
FEGAN: But it's interesting because leading up to an election, we're seeing it quite often because now the Labor government put forward on anti-semitism, very similar to what the coalition had put forward. It would seem an election is just around the corner, Minister.
WELLS: Yeah, but this policy, the $8.5 billion to improve bulk billing. I mean, this builds on what we announced in 2023, where for of two out of five Australians, pensioners, concession cardholders and kids under 16, we put this in place and we've seen good results from that. So based on that, we are now expanding that so it includes all Australians. And it doesn't matter how old you are or whether you are on a concession card or not, you will be able to get a bulk billing appointment at your doctor and not have to pay.
FEGAN: But don't you think, though, Minister, I mean, I'm prepared to pay for a doctor. I earn enough money to pay for one, in this country if you earn enough money, shouldn't we just be paying for things? I mean, it's a lot of money we're handing out here.
WELLS: It sounds like you're advocating for Peter Dutton's GP tax.
FEGAN: Well, I'm not really, but, Minister, what I'm getting at, and the reason I asked the question. And look, it's great. Don't get me wrong. I think nine out of ten visits to the doctor is absolutely fantastic, but $8.5 billion and $9 billion from the coalition. My question to both of you is where are you getting the money from? There would have to be cuts to the NDIS to make these changes, or there's going to have to be cuts to other parts of health because we don't have that kind of money. The RBA's just told us all to reign in the spending, and now we're spending $8.5 and $9 billion, respectively. That's why I asked the question, where are we getting it from?
WELLS: The Labor government answer is that we provisioned the vast majority of this money back in the mid-year economic update. So for us, that is accounted for and the remainder will be providing an update was speaking to this yesterday. Your question is absolutely genuine when it comes to the coalition because like you said, they didn't know about this until yesterday. They matched it within hours. Where are they provisioning it from?
FEGAN: [Interrupts] Well I think there's going to be cuts to health. I doubt, Minister I doubt that Peter Dutton has $9 billion without cutting. He says he's not going to cut NDIS He says he's not going to cut hospitals. But how do you get the money? I'm questioning both of you. It's not just I'm questioning Labor. I don't think Peter Dutton has the money either.
WELLS: You're right to question Peter Dutton because they said one thing in the 2013 election, pretty much like they said yesterday. And then everyone remembers the austerity budget in 2014 when they came in and cut everything, particularly health, when he was health minister. And you would have seen a few weeks ago when he was asked your question, where is this money coming from? How are you going to pay for this? He said, oh, well, we'll look at all that and we'll tell the Australian public after we get the keys to government, after the election, it isn't good enough to keep asking.
FEGAN: Where are you getting it from?
WELLS: Like I said, we provisioned this money, the vast majority of it back in MYEFO at the end of last year, and the remainder of it will come through our budget process, which is why we're not starting it till November, because this is good governance-considered work.
FEGAN: So there'll be no cuts to health under a Labor government to get this $8.5 billion. No cuts to NDIS no cuts to hospitals.
WELLS: Labor has invested record billions in health this term. That's because that's what Labor governments do. We love Medicare. We will always protect Medicare. We're always looking at ways to strengthen Medicare. You and I have talked before about the record investment in aged care, which is part of the health portfolio federally this term. Health is an area where the pen is never down. And I'm sure you've got people today saying, oh, well, what about this area and what about this area? And they could be doing this as well. And that's true. There's always more we could be doing.
FEGAN: I just find it hard to believe there won't be other cuts. So you can't say yes or no. You can't say you can't give me a definitive no there won't be cuts to NDIS and there won't be cuts to hospitals. You can't give me a definitive no.
WELLS: Peter, we just put an extra $1.7 billion into the National hospital agreement less than two weeks ago. I mean, with respect to the NDIS you would have seen and I know you would have discussed with Bill Shorten previously how they've got to address the growth in that area. But that's a different thing to cuts. But I'm sure you'll have the Treasurer on.
FEGAN: Well I will and I'll be putting this and I hope to have Peter Dutton on this week as well. I'll be putting it to him. And look, I think it's fantastic for Australians. Minister, don't get me wrong, I think it's great that we have such great healthcare in this country. There'll be two questions I'll be putting to Peter Dutton at the same I've put to you. Will there be cuts to NDIS? Will there be cuts to hospitals? Theoretically I think there has to be because we don't have that kind of money. I know that neither government is going to give me a definitive answer. And I'll also be saying to Peter Dutton, where does he plan to get the money from? Because it is a lot of money. Back to my argument earlier though, minister. Now I have no issues myself going to a doctor and paying for it because I can afford to. I know there's people out there in the same situation as me that can afford to pay for these sorts of things. Don't you think, given the current climate, given that the March 25th budget is probably going to be the leanest budget we've ever seen in this country, that perhaps if you can afford to do something in this country you should pay for it.
WELLS: Look, I have two answers for you there. One, paying for healthcare is something that people consistently come to mobile offices to talk to me about. They can't find a bulk billing clinic. They are desperately grateful that the urgent care clinic has come to Kedron, which means when these accidents happen you don’t have to worry about cutting some other element of your household budget to pay for immediate unexpected medical expense. And secondly, I'd say with respect to budgets and the forthcoming budget, we've had two budget surpluses and we've paid down $100 billion of coalition debt, which has given us the ability to make decisions about how we spend that money in a way that actually helps Australians and isn't just paying down debt.
FEGAN: Now, you've been with Wally Lewis this week I've noticed, this is exciting.
WELLS: The dream.
FEGAN: Yeah. How was it?
WELLS: Well, I think CTE is- I get asked a lot, and I think we've even talked about this before. Why are you the aged Care and Sport Minister? How are those two portfolio areas related? And they're both under the health umbrella, is the short answer. But dementia and early onset dementia and things like CTE, where there's links to early onset dementia because of contact sport, is an area where you can actually have an aged care and sport minister double down and try and do good work in this patch. That's an emerging area. And Wally's been leading the charge. He's been really honest about what those effects look like for him personally. He doesn't like talking about being- the frailty of what that looks like. And when we were able to find the money, this was Jim Chalmers and I in the budget, to put $13 million towards a pilot programme to kind of build awareness about what this looks like so that kids, when they're making a decision about what sport they go into, parents can have an educated discussion around what those risks are because we want more kids to play sport. We want more Wally Lewis’ in our state, and we want people to feel safe and educated about those sport choices. So being able to give something back to the king after all he's given to us, it was a joy.
FEGAN: Have you ever Minister, have you ever been advocated by like, I don't know, by who- or have you ever sat down and spoken to people about one day the likelihood of having kids sport here in Australia that have laws around or federal laws around head protection.
WELLS: I couldn't rule it out definitively. I can't remember any particular meetings about that. And obviously everyone's got sort of different ideas about how to alleviate the risk. But for us, it's a balancing act, because dementia is the second biggest killer in this country of Australians. It's something we need to do more about. But we know also that physical activity is one of the ways that you can offset the onset of dementia. So we don't want to stop people from playing sport.
FEGAN: No, it's a tough one, isn't it? Because on one hand you want kids to be competitive. You want kids to get into that team environment. But, on the other hand, we do have this big thing called concussion. And I've spoken to Wally about it heaps of times, minister, and I don't think you'll get a better advocate because Wally is so honest about it. And I think that's what, I think, again, if we didn't have Wally coming out and doing what we did, do you think we would be so advanced in CTE now?
WELLS: He has been a brilliant advocate. If you didn't sit down and watch his National Press Club speech that he gave probably months ago now, I think that was a turning point in the conversation. But I'd also give a shout out, there's lots of people like the Brain Bank, and there's lots of people working in this space, because it is a real emerging area. And, it's always a case of we want to, like I said, in health you can always invest more money because there's always good work going on, but Wally combined with Dementia Australia, working on the second biggest killer in this country in ways that we can help Australians with that, it was a no brainer. And it was also just great to give The King a call.
FEGAN: Yeah, good on you Minister. Always great to have you company. We'll chat again very soon.
WELLS: Have a good morning.