PRIME MINISTER
MACQUARIE NETWORK WEEKLY BROADCAST
By the Prime MAinister, The . Rt Hon.
William IMcMahon, CH, MP.
NATIONAL HEALTH 19 JULY, 1972.
Q. Prime Minister, you are critical of the Labor Party's National
Health Scheme. Why.?
PM. I can explain it fairly easily. Last week the Labor Party
released an expensively produced pamphlet. It contained its
own version of a National Health Scheme, and I believe it's a
very revealing and cynical document. I make this accusation
because this is an official Labor Party document and it is
based on satire. It's main headline is borrowed from the title
of a well-known satirical theatrical revue and it seems clear
to me that the Opposition wants to treat this serious and
vital question of national health as nothing more than a joke.
Many Australians already know this flippant, unthinking approach
is typical of the serious deficiencies of Labor's plan for
health nationalisation. They know its policy is so shot through
with contradictions that it amounts to deception. That's my
view.
Q. Well Sir, that only deals with the pamphlet itself. Why
do you criticise the Labor Party nolicy on national health?
PM. Well for a start, the Leader of the Opposition and his
health expert can't agree. His own health expert has had to
correct his Leader in public and to do so more than once. The
Leader of the Opposition announced that families with a
taxable income of less than 1,700 a year would get free health
insurance. Mr. Hayden announced his Leader's figures were out
of date. That was nearly two months ago. The latest Labor
pamphlet is still talking about free health insurance for those
earning less than $ 1,700 a year. Which one of them speaks for
the Labor Party?
Q. That may be so Prime Minister, but where does the
Government stand on free health insurance?
PM. Well, we already provide free health insurance to families
with an income of less than $ 2,178 a year. That means that
under Labor's so-called olan to help the needy, a family at
present receiving free insurance could immediately have to pay
at least $ 26 a year, and it would not be tax deductible.
Q. Hasn't the Labor Party announced how it's paying for its
Nationalised Health Scheme?
P1. Yes, but you find the same chopping and changing here. At
first it was a compulsory tax of 1.25 per cent of everbody's
income. Last July it was lifted to 1.3 ner cent. Now it is
to be 1.35 per cent. No--one can be confident it will stop
there.
Q. What about hospital treatment?
PM. Well the Leader of the Opposition tries to pretend his
scheme will cover you in all hospital wards. His health expert
had to contradict him again on this. Under Labor, the patient
would be forced to pay all additional costs over and above
public ward treatment, and the taxpayer will pay at least $ 168
million more each year for the privilege. The present
voluntary scheme allows you to insure in full for all hospital
wards, intermediate and private as well.
Q. Sir, there's frequent criticism that there are too many
benefit organisations. How do you answer that?
PM. That is another great Labor fallacy. They want to wine out
overnight 82 medical and 92 hospital organisations and they
want to replac6 them with one big centralised government-run
show. This idea was totally rejected by the experts we
appointed to examine health insurance. It would cost millions
to duplicate facilities all operating now at no cost to the
taxpayer. Labor wants a complete takeover of all hospitals.
Such a plan, I believe, and my experts believe, will inevitably
collapse.
Q. Would it be right to say then that tke voluntary health
insurance scheme is perfect?
PM. No. The Liberal Party does not say he voluntary health
insurance scheme is perfect. We do thin t is the best that's
available, because our policy is to nut the interests of the
patients first. The individual is of paramount importance to
us, and we want to treat the patient as an individual humanbeing
not a cog in a medical care machine. We believe
Australians want a scheme which reflects their feelings, which
treats them as people, not as computbrised episodes of illness.
We also believe the patient must be personally identified with
a health scheme and have some personal responsibility.
We have attempted to do this by establishing the common
fee system which provides for:
3,.
Eighty cents for a surgery visit;
One dollar twenty for a home visit;
and five dollars for any operation or
specialist procedure.
We are now trying to improve this system. This year, * Mr.
Justice Mason recommended increases in the common fee in New
South Wales and we accepted them for all states. The increases
will not be paid by the oatient but by the Government. We
have a practical, working scheme. It's a pretty good one and
we will improve it. Labor's policy, as you know, must destroy
it!