TRANSCRIPT - ASSISTANT MINISTER KEARNEY - DOOR

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORS
WEDNESDAY, 12 FEBRUARY 2025

SUBJECTS: COALITION RESPONDS TO WOMEN’S HEALTH ANNOUNCEMENT

Okay. Good morning, everyone.

My name is Ged Kearney, I'm the Assistant Minister for Health and Aged Care and for First Nations Health.
 
Well, I'm pretty sure everybody would have heard on the weekend, the Albanese Labor Government announced over half a billion dollars in health measures that were predominantly for women, for women's health, women who have been forgotten by the health system for so long, and we are investing in their healthcare.
 
We've listened we've heard them, we believe them, and we are now taking action.
 
This has been welcomed by just about everybody right across the country. We've had endorsements from the RACGP, from the AMA, from the pharmacy guild, from the College of Midwives, from nurse practitioners and more broadly, from the women of Australia.
 
This package has been welcomed, and we are very pleased to hear, and we do welcome that the opposition has backed this in as well. The Shadow Minister for Health has said that they will take up this policy if they are elected.
 
But I just want to say today, there is a reason why the women of Australia do not trust Peter Dutton. They know that he has to find $350 billion for the cuts that he said he's going to make if he is elected. And where is that $350 billion going to come from? Well, you just have to look at his record.
 
When they were last in government, he was part of that Abbott Government who promised there'd be no cuts to healthcare. And what happened when Dutton was health minister, there was $60 billion cut from the healthcare system. He tried to introduce a Medicare tax. He tried to do away with bulk billing.
 
This is a man who was voted the worst health minister that Australia has ever had, and that is why the women of Australia do not trust him with their healthcare.
 
This sort of package, this preventative health package, is exactly the type of measure that a Liberal government would do away with when trying to find that $350 billion of cuts to make those cuts.
We know they don't like Medicare. They've never liked Medicare. They will go for Medicare. They have a problem with women, and I believe that probably one of the first things they will cut is a women's healthcare package.
 
Thanks very much, everyone.