Transcript: Interview with Mark Levy, 2GB - 22 July 2025

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEW WITH MARK LEVY, 2GB

22 July 2025

Topics: Labor’s bulk billing promise, Anthony Albanese’s disingenuous Medicare card stunt

E&OE…………………………………

Mark Levy: It's Medicare for all, according to the Prime Minister. Australian values, green and gold - Great sales pitch, even if harping on about Medicare is something we have to come to expect from the ALP. But the news today doesn't line up with that vision, because we're told that nearly a quarter of doctors' clinics are unlikely to take up the Medicare bulk billing incentive that the Prime Minister promised prior to the election. Anne Ruston is the Shadow Health Minister. She joins me from Canberra. Senator Ruston, good morning to you. 

Anne Ruston: Good morning, Mark. 

Mark Levy: Well, it's funny. I played that audio there and I had a look at some of the things the Prime Minister said throughout the election campaign and one of those was, "I want every Australian to know that they only need their Medicare card, not their credit card to receive the healthcare they need. No Australians should have to check their bank balance to see if they can afford to see a doctor. That is not who we are." Clearly the GPs are on a different page, Senator. 

Anne Ruston: Well, I mean, I think Anthony Albanese is starting to look a bit more like a snake oil salesman than the Prime Minister on this issue, as he runs around waving his Medicare card telling Australians that their health care is for free. Australians know that's not true. They know it every time they go to the doctor, they feel it in their hip pocket. It's really disappointing to see that already the Prime Minister's own Department of Health had data, which one assumes the Government had at the time they made these announcements, that this was never going to reach the levels that they were telling. And it's just incredible that this government would lie about something as important as health to Australians. We find out straight after the election, the Government knew that it was lying. And right now, the victims of this lie are Australians who know every time they go to see the doctor, it's hard to get in and when they do get in, they're being slugged the highest out of pocket costs that they've ever been hit with before. It is an absolute indictment on the Prime Minister. 

Mark Levy: Well, the Government announced, didn't they, $8.5 billion aimed at lifting bulk billing rates to 90% by 2030. That's just fantasy land stuff now, isn't it, Senator? 

Anne Ruston: Well, we know that you can get bulk billing rates up to those kinds of levels. That's the level bulk billing was at when we left government. It was over 88 per cent when we were last in government, and over the three year term of this government, it has fallen by 11 per cent to 77 per cent. I mean, by every measure, this government has failed Australians on Medicare. And yet they continue, even this morning on Breakfast Television, one of Anthony Albanese's ministers is continuing to tell lies about free access to healthcare in this country. I want Australians to be able to get affordable and timely access to healthcare and that will be my absolute focus of every policy that we develop over the next three years to go to the next election. But we won't lie to Australians like this government is. 

Mark Levy: Is the problem the 12.5% incentive split between practises and providers, is that not where it needs to be? 

Anne Ruston: Well, I think that the challenge is that unless the incentive is sufficient for clinics to actually see that the value proposition for them to no longer need to be able to charge out of pocket costs is high enough - And quite clearly, the Government's own modelling said that what they were offering was not sufficient for GPs to pick it up and do the bulk billing. But it's not just the Government's modelling, we've got to listen to the RACGP, to the AMA. I mean, they have been saying that what the Government is doing is just smoke and mirrors, it's not true, they're lying to Australians. And the reality is gonna be felt, because we'll watch the statistics as they go over the next three years to see how many Australians are getting bulk billed. I hope they are being bulk billed, but I fear they won't be. 

Mark Levy: It's fairly embarrassing, I would have thought, for the Prime Minister who's been waving around his Medicare card. Most Australians out there are saying it's all good to say Medicare, but the other one we're throwing around at the moment is our credit card, because it's hurting us in the hip pocket. 

Anne Ruston: Well, the Prime Minister doesn't seem to care. I mean, he's perpetuating a lie, even though he's been called out by his own Department's data. He still seems to think that he can run around lying. I mean, the clip that you played before we went to this interview, I mean it tells the entire story. This guy will lie and he does not care about the truth, and the reality of that is that Australians will just continue to fork out more when they go to the doctor. But the worst part of it is - Last year, 1.5 million Australians didn't visit their GP because they said they couldn't afford to, which means they're the ones that are ending up sicker and ending up in our emergency departments or ramped outside of our hospitals. This government needs to be honest about healthcare, because unless we're honest about healthcare, we are not going to be able to deliver a system with affordable and timely access, which is what the Coalition wants. 

Mark Levy: It sounds like this will be an issue that the Coalition will be taking up in the first Question Time of the year tomorrow, Senator. Is that right? 

Anne Ruston: You can be absolutely assured every single chance I get, I will be asking the Prime Minister to demonstrate how he is going to deliver the promise he made to Australians. Because unless he can do that, Australians will suffer with worse healthcare outcomes and Australians can't afford that. We deserve as a First World Nation to have the health outcomes that the Prime Minister's promising, I just don't think he can do it. 

Mark Levy: Alright, well, it's a big day down there, ceremonial as it is, but I'll let you get back to it. Thanks for having a chat this morning, Senator, but it just highlights that we might be in for some more lies from this Prime Minister, given we're still waiting for a $275 reduction in our power bills, and he's promised all of these bulk billing GPs, but clearly, a lot of those GPs – a quarter of them anyway – aren't interested in this incentive that's been put forward by the Labor Government. Thanks so much for joining us. 

ENDS