BEN FORDHAM:
Treasurer Joe Hockey joins us on the line. Treasurer, good afternoon.
TREASURER:
Good afternoon, Ben.
BEN FORDHAM:
Is it one of the barnacles that is going to be knocked off the boat between now and Christmas - the $7 GP co-payment?
TREASURER:
Look, it is not a barnacle. It is a policy that is about trying to fix some of the challenges associated with the mess that was left to us by the previous Government and one of them was that Medicare has grown from $10 billion a year 10 years ago to $20 billion now a year and the Medicare Levy only raises half of that. So, there is a $10 billion gap. It is going to increase to $34 billion in 10 years’ time. Now, we want to make the system sustainable and we are asking Australians to help make a contribution to meet that sustainability need through a co-payment and that is our policy.
BEN FORDHAM:
You have sold me on the need to pay the $7 co-payment; you have sold plenty of my listeners as well, but there are many others outside of that sphere who aren’t as sold on it. Do you believe the reports that the Prime Minister’s office was briefing senior journalists saying that the co-payment is going to be ditched?
TREASURER:
Look, gosh I see some incredible speculation about all sorts of things Ben, but as the Prime Minister said in Question Time, as he said last night, as I have said, as Eric Abetz has said, as Peter Dutton has said, we need people to make a contribution along the way if we want to maintain the current Medicare system. That is what I mean – just to maintain the current system, we have to spend $14 billion a year [inaudible] in a decade. So, if we want to improve the system – and everything we do should be about improving things, it is probably going to cost even more than that. So, we are asking people to make a contribution. This was Labor policy, don’t forget. They actually legislated a co-payment under Bob Hawke, then they changed their minds and then they said, ‘well hang on, it’s okay to have pensioners and others pay a co-payment for pharmaceuticals, and the co-payment on pharmaceuticals, which has been over $360 a year for a pensioner, the Labor Party says, ‘that is fair’, but if it is $70 a maximum a year to visit a doctor, that is unfair.