Opposition leader promises action to cut out-of-pocket costs for cancer patients, plus tax cuts for people earning under $48,000

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Bill Shorten has used the final day of the 45th parliament to unveil a $2.3bn package to reduce out-of-pocket costs for cancer patients, while promising more generous tax relief for workers earning under $48,000 and a $440m injection for technical education.

With the major parties now campaigning full-tilt in an undeclared election contest, the Labor leader used his budget reply speech to promise to eliminate out-of-pocket costs for cancer diagnostic imaging by opening up MRIs across the country for cancer scans, and allocating $600m to improve access to and affordability of diagnostic imaging.

A further $433m will fund a new bulk-billed Medicare item for consultations with oncologists and surgeons for Australians diagnosed with cancer. Shorten also guaranteed to list all cancer drugs on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme recommended by experts.

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As well as the big ticket cancer pledge, Shorten confirmed he would support but enhance the Morrison government’s tax rebate for low and middle-income earners promised in Tuesday’s budget, and would oppose stage two and three of the Coalition’s tax package, which benefits workers on high incomes – setting up a point of partisan conflict in the looming campaign.

Shorten derided the government’s tax plan to flatten the tax scales as “a ticking debt bomb”.

In a speech that was more campaign launch than conventional budget reply, Shorten appealed to Labor’s base, to women and to young voters, characterising his party’s proposed negative gearing reform and “real action on climate change” as tangible tests of generational fairness. He declared the economy must “work for everyone”.

Shorten said workers earning less than $48,000 a year should not be short-changed. He promised to increase the government’s tax offset from 1 July, benefitting low-income and part-time workers, at a cost of $1.05bn over the forward estimates.

He said 57% of people earning less than $48,000 were women – “childcare workers and classroom assistants, hairdressers, office managers and they are parents returning to work part-time”.

“In a lot of these cases these are the very same workers in retail, hospitals, pharmacy and fast food, who have already had penalty rates arbitrarily cut,” Shorten said Thursday night.

“Under Labor’s changes, which will apply from the 2018-19 financial year, workers earning up to $37,000 a year will receive a tax cut of up to $350.

“For workers earning between $37,000 and $48,000 a year, the value of the offset will increase up to the maximum offset of $1,080”.

The Morrison government increased health spending preemptively in Tuesday’s budget in an effort to blunt Labor’s expected ground campaign on government services, which was highly effective in 2016, but Shorten characterised his new cancer package as “the most important investment in Medicare since Bob Hawke created it”.

The Labor leader said experiencing a cancer diagnosis was frightening, isolating and exhausting, “and – all too often – it is impoverishing. For so many people, cancer makes you sick and then paying for the treatment makes you poor.”

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He said cancer patients faced huge out-of-pocket costs, with people in the regions particularly hard hit. “If someone you love had cancer, you would sell the shirt off your back, but should you have to?”

Shorten said Australians paid their Medicare levy, and “if I’m elected prime minister, I’ll make sure that the healthcare system is there for you when you need it most”.

The Labor leader said the scheme was affordable fiscally “because of our reform decisions. We choose our healthcare system over bigger tax loopholes”.

Shorten predicted the tone of the coming election campaign would be negative. He said he was optimistic, and voters should choose hope over fear.

“Labor offers stability and unity and a vision for the nation, we choose hope over fear, we choose the future over the past, we choose the best support possible for people with cancer,” Shorten said.

“We choose fair wages and good jobs. We choose Tafe and apprenticeships, we choose a voice to First Australians enshrined in our constitution.

“We choose renewables and we choose real action on climate change. We choose the ABC. We choose equality for women of Australia, equality for everyone.

“If these things matter to you, if you believe that when all is said and done about politics the most important things are family and health, if you believe that handing on a better deal to your kids than the one you inherited from your parents, if you believe that is what is the sort of vision we should have for Australia – then when you cast your vote in May – choose a Labor government for all Australians”.