The Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, has sought to refocus his campaign on the failings of the Morrison government, taking to flood-affected parts of Brisbane to criticise the Coalition’s natural disaster response.
Opening the second week of the election campaign in the Coalition-held seat of Brisbane, Albanese and shadow treasurer, Jim Chalmers, also tried to pressure the government over its support for Medicare, using the appointment of Anne Ruston as future health minister to accuse the Liberals of wanting to cut health spending.
Ruston, who on Sunday ruled out cuts to Medicare after being grilled on remarks made in 2015 about the system being “unsustainable”, was asked multiple times on Monday to rule out cuts to Medicare.
“We absolutely guaranteed Medicare in law,” Ruston told the ABC, without categorically ruling out cuts.
“Medicare is sustainable,” Ruston said.
“The fact [is] that we have increased spending on Medicare from when Labor was last in government in 2012-13, from $19bn to $31.4bn in 22-23.”
At the time Ruston made the remarks about Medicare being unsustainable, she was a backbench senator defending an Abbott-era policy for a GP co-payment that was later dumped.
But Albanese said the appointment would lead to a government that would “undermine Medicare” and cut health spending.
“This is a health minister now designate, if they’re successful in the election, who we know will undermine Medicare, who has said that the current model is not sustainable, who has said that Medicare funding is just putting things on the credit card and that it needs to change,” Albanese said.
“If Scott Morrison is re-elected, we can expect cuts to health, cuts to education, cuts to other essential services – because this is a prime minister who only defines action by what’s in the short-term political interests of himself.”
Chalmers said Morrison’s pick of Ruston would “send a shiver down the spine of every Australian who needs affordable health care”.
“The prime minister’s hand-picked health minister was given multiple opportunities this morning to rule out further cuts to Medicare and she couldn’t do it. Medicare is not safe under Scott Morrison and Anne Ruston.”
Labor’s targeted message on the threat to health spending, which is reminiscent of the 2016 Mediscare campaign run against Malcolm Turnbull, was backed up by Labor MPs posting about Ruston’s remarks on social media.
On the floods, Albanese said Morrison has only acted when “the political pressure was really put on”, likening the response to the government’s failings after the black summer bushfires and the pandemic.
“On floods, we saw again a political response, rather than a human response, rather than looking at people who were going through a really tough time and saying, ‘what can we do to help?’”
But while Albanese was keen to refocus the campaign on the government’s record, the Labor leader also faced questions about the party’s pledge to establish 50 urgent care clinics across the country.
The $135m health policy has drawn a lukewarm response from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and criticism from the Australian Medical Association, who say the policy is “incoherent” and will do nothing to address the logjam in public hospitals.
Albanese was unable to say how many doctors and nurses the 50 clinics would require, and the party has not yet released costings for the policy which it claims are based on work done by the parliamentary budget office.
Labor has so far pledged that one of the clinics will be established in Cessnock, in the seat of Hunter, and seven of the clinics will be built in WA.
“Well, we’re going to need additional nurses and doctors,” Albanese said.
“These won’t be run by the government. These won’t be run centrally. These will come through – these will be determined by the people who run the centres, which is existing GP clinics and community health centres”.
Morrison, who was announcing a $124m shipbuilding commitment in Perth, moved to tidy up Ruston’s remarks, saying the government had increased Medicare spending from $19.1bn to $31.4bn.
“I thought Anne Ruston – who I announced [as health minister] yesterday, should we be successful at the election … said yesterday there would not be any cuts. And I would repeat that today.”
He also wrongly claimed the jobseeker payment had been increased from $40 a week to $46 a week while answering a question about the cost of living, rather than $46 a day. He later said he misspoke.
With published polls showing a tightening of the contest in the run-up to the 21 May election, Morrison also left the door open to negotiating with independent MPs on the crossbench to form government.
However, he said that he still expected moderate MPs being challenged by climate-friendly independents to win their seats, and warned against voting independent.
“A vote for those independents is a vote for uncertainty, a vote for instability,” he said.
