TOM CONNELL, HOST: Patrick Gorman. Heads are going to roll, apparently. What do you make of how Optus has handled itself today?
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: I think it was about time that Optus came and answered some very tough questions. Obviously, there were too many questions to be asked, and there's still a range of things where people are wanting more answers. Understandably -
CONNELL: What do you make of having a crisis meeting before telling a minister what's happening?
GORMAN: I think you have had a range of people, the Minister herself and others, expressing serious concern about how Optus handled this. It was clear that their communications and their openness about what was happening was not up to scratch. That is why we have got the ACMA already doing an investigation. They are the regulator. They have enforcement powers, so we will let that work happen. This parliamentary inquiry is also welcome, because it gives the Australian public the opportunity to see Optus being held accountable through our parliamentary process. All those things have got to run out. I look forward to the recommendation to the inquiry when it is completed.
CONNELL: The bulk billing incentives are rolling out. And I found this interesting. If you're going to participate in this, you have to put up Medicare bulk billing practice signs. You are trying to get people to recognise the government here, or pressure GPs to join?
GORMAN: I think, for the last 40 years, if you go into a GP practice where they have got Medicare funding, you see Medicare on the counter, and you see -
CONNELL: Its compulsory though - they've got to put up a big sign now.
GORMAN: If you have got support to make sure that people in the community - and I think about some of the GP clinics in my electorate who I am hoping will sign up to this -
CONNELL: Not many in the inner-city, I imagine, do full bulk billing?
GORMAN: There are a few inner-city bulk billing clinics. I am very fortunate in that regard. But I want to see more. What we have seen already is that there is some extra thousand GP practices who have signed up as a result of these incentives.
CONNELL: They've gone from mix to full time?
GORMAN: That is great news. Excellent news for the Australian people. And I hope that people do recognise that there is a difference. They have a bit more choice in the market when they are choosing where they go to for the doctor. They can choose a bulk billing practice. A choice so many people do not have.
CONNELL: If a practice has done the numbers, though, and they're going to be way behind on going fully bulk billed and they haven't done it. I mean, people will be coming in saying the Prime Minister said, 'all I need is my Medicare card. You better bulk bill me.' Do you feel sorry for them at all? The expectation that's been set by the PM - all you need is your Medicare card?
GORMAN: What we want is to have 9 out of 10 - so not every GP appointment - 9 out of 10 being bulk billed. That was always the intent of Medicare, for those regular GP appointments, that it would be bulk billed we've -
CONNELL: [inaudible] campaign, all you need is your Medicare card, isn't 9 out of 10, is it?
GORMAN: We are talking about hundreds of thousands of additional bulk billed appointments. If you go to a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, all you need is your Medicare card, if you go to one of those additional thousand GP practices - that as of this week are now bulk billing - all you need is your Medicare card, and there is more to come. And I make no apologies. And the government makes no apologies for setting the expectation that bulk billing should be the norm. That is cost of living relief and this idea of universal health care.
CONNELL: The practice goes fully bulk billed and then down the track, indexing doesn't keep up. Could be any number of reasons. They're in a tough position, aren't they? They either go backwards at that point or they reintroduce fees - your patients would be up in arms. You get why people would be reluctant to go fully bulk build for that reason? Then you're relying on the government at that point.
GORMAN: While I'm looking at the evidence in front of us today, Tom. That evidence is showing that doctors and practices have run the sums and thousands have already -
CONNELL: But I'm asking about that situation. Do you understand that reluctance in that scenario? Because they've had it - they've just gone through a period where indexation hasn't kept up. Now you're saying, 'hey, everything will be all right with us, just go fully bulk billed - we won't change our mind, we promise.'
GORMAN: I can speak to this government. We have indexed and put more money into Medicare. I think you would know that Sussan Ley is one of those who, when she was Health Minister, did not index Medicare payments. That is not the approach we have taken.
CONNELL: It would give a lot more money to practices already bulk billing. So that's not - doesn't seem like a great use of taxpayer money. And what the RACGP wanted was longer consults, more money for longer consults. Why was that ignored?
GORMAN: What we thought was the best thing we can do is to make sure that more Australians are seeing their GP and not having those cost barriers. We know that is one of the things that does put pressure on other parts of our health system. We will keep talking to all those -
CONNELL: People running the practices, said the best thing was longer consults. You said, 'nah, what would you know?'
GORMAN: We have taken a lot of different advice in this. There is a lot of people who put views to government about how health spending should be done -
CONNELL: Which group said this would be a better option than longer consults?
GORMAN: We have been through a very extensive consultation, including the consultation we went through with the Australian people. We took this to an election Tom -
CONNELL: But hang on. Which group said, 'go, don't worry about longer consults - bulk billing is a better idea'?
GORMAN: There has been a range of inputs put into the development of this policy -
CONNELL: Name any of them, though?
GORMAN: You have got patient groups who come in and have very strong views. You have had a lot of asks on government to take serious action on cost of living. We have taken that -
CONNELL: So patient groups said 'longer consults are no good, go for bulk billing?'
GORMAN: I am not dismissing the inputs that we have had into this. I respect the college of GPs, they have an important role to play. But our goal, our policy goal, was very clearly to make sure that we have that strong universal health care system. That is what was there for me when I was a kid with asthma. That is what I want to be there for families relying on our public health system and our universal Medicare system. I am really proud of what we have been able to get done. Six months ago today, the Australian people strongly backed -
CONNELL: I can imagine the first appointment for asthma, would be a pretty long appointment, maybe a longer consult would have been good?
GORMAN: It also involved our public hospital system. I was really lucky to have - Dr David Nelson was my GP as a kid, there in Freo bulk billing. My parents were teachers. They didn't have huge amounts of money. They relied on our public health system. I want to make sure that everyone can - whether it be for their child with asthma, whatever other health needs they have.
CONNELL: I know you want to talk about the WA GST advertising. So it says we need education. Us, in the cone of ignorance we're living here in the east. So what factual errors is the WA Government going to correct us on the GST?
GORMAN: I will leave them to talk about their advertising campaign. What I think is important for your viewers to know is that the Albanese Government has been very clear - we support the current arrangements. We have said that to the Western Australian State Government. We have been clear during the election campaign that we wanted to make sure that 75 cent floor that gives confidence to states and territories remains. I think it is a pretty basic principle that you have 75 cents in the dollar go back to the state that it came from. I voted for that in 2018. Our government in our budget in 2023 topped up the funding for the No Worse Off Guarantee out to 2030 and we are now just going through a review.
CONNELL: So yeah. So you're trying to say, 'don't worry about the review, nothing will happen.' I mean, so it won't review something that's now going to cost the budget $54 billion over a decade. And in the spirit of advertising, correct me if I'm wrong - so $54 billion over a decade, and the money goes to by far the wealthiest state in the nation. They're both facts. Are they not?
GORMAN: Fact one is that the No Worse Off Guarantee meant that no state ended up receiving -
CONNELL: Which would cost $54 billion?
GORMAN: - and we have extended that out to 2030. Fact two is, if any state or territory was finding themselves in the situation that Western Australia had, where you were getting less, at some points, than 20 cents in the dollar back into the State. People would think that was probably not a foreseeable arrangement, when the agreement was made -
CONNELL: Maybe not. But overall, the state was going well because of the rivers of gold over there, the iron ore and so on.
GORMAN: What we have been talking about a lot in the Parliament the last week and a bit, is about the importance of backing our resources industry, particularly in the assistance it can provide us in the transition to a lower carbon future. But I do think that people know that we have to do this review. This review was agreed between Mark McGowan and Scott Morrison. We have to do it. It is a legislative review. It is not something that this Government has sort of dived in wanting to do on our own initiative. It was agreed many parliaments ago -
CONNELL: Nothing is changing, essentially, on that at the moment?
GORMAN: Well the GST deal gives certainty -
CONNELL: Gotta leave it there. Patrick Gorman, thank you.
GORMAN: Thanks. Tom.