Mr MARTYN EVANS (10:57 PM) —In the time available to me this evening, I would like to bring to the attention of the House the tragic decision of this government to close one of the principal Medicare offices in my electorate. I refer to the Medicare office located in the city of Salisbury. That Medicare office has been there for many years, since the establishment of the scheme back in the early days of the 1970s, and has served the people of the Salisbury district very well indeed.

The government's decision to close that office will now ensure that the people in that district—a very substantial population area—will be severely disadvantaged by their inability to make cash claims at that office or to lodge claims for subsequent payment. Of course, the Medicare offices were part of a community web of support. They provided for other government payments to be made through those offices. With their office being closed—particularly one as well used as the one in the city of Salisbury—citizens in this area will find themselves denied a range of government services.

But we should not have been surprised by this decision to close a Medicare office, because it is part of a consistent pattern of attack by this government on the Medicare system and on the public health system in general. We have seen substantial funds diverted from the public system, but we have also seen the difficulties which all the states, including states led by Liberal or coalition government Premiers, are having in negotiating a new Medicare agreement with this government. Clearly, as Dean Brown, the Liberal Minister for Health in South Australia, has indicated recently, the government is substantially neglecting the interests of the public health sector in failing to properly negotiate those agreements and in failing—as it has already done—to recognise the importance of public health in this country.

We have a government that went to the last election and made a commitment to maintain the Medicare system, but since their election we have seen nothing but a consistent attack on that system and the closure of Medicare offices. Now we even have a Treasurer (Mr Costello) who is discussing the introduction of co-payments into the Medicare system and is saying that it is a disadvantage for bulk-billing of medical services to be available, because it effectively makes the service free to the patient, as the Treasurer has recognised. I do not see that as he see it: a negative in the system. I see it, from the perspective of one who represents a constituency with many people who are not able to afford extensive medical care, as a service which is indeed very positive and productive for those people. The attack by this government on that system, the attack which it mounted in the last budget on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme, and the way it has forced people to pay more for more effective medicines will come back to haunt it at the next election in the only way it can expect, as people recognise the danger of that system and the deficit it brings.

Mr SPEAKER —Order! It being 11 p.m., the debate is interrupted.