Australian opposition leader makes health center of election

The Coalition has ruled out privatising any part of Medicare but Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has found another Government database he claims would be compromised by private sector outsourcing. His three platforms for the upcoming election were more jobs, Medicare reforms and more funding for education.

“In modern Australia, no one should have to justify their sexuality or their love, to anyone else”, Labor leader Bill Shorten said at Labor’s official election campaign launch on Sunday.

Labor is continuing with its scare campaign over Medicare, despite coming under fire from doctors and the Greens for over-reaching on claims the coalition has a secret plan to privatise the system.

That marked a departure from the AMA’s position in February, under Dr Gannon’s predecessor Brian Owler, when the association raised concerns about “serious privacy issues” arising from outsourcing the payments system.

On the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night, Turnbull made it clear the government’s preference was for “very large” IT services contracts in the future to be delivered from within government, and not outsourced to private companies.

But the shadow health spokeswoman is not convinced, declaring the government was now at “very, very advanced” stages of privatising the IT systems, having already put out an expression of interest to companies.

“If the Liberals win, we shouldn’t be anxious about Mr Turnbull breaking his promises”.

“This is a disaster when it comes to health”, she said.

“What we want to do is make sure that Australians living with a disability or their families caring for them receive packages of support”, he said.

Dr Jennings said on Tuesday that there were several examples of how Medicare is already being privatised.

In the scope of the inquiry the commission states it is examining the application of competition and user choice to services within the human services sector to develop policy options to improve outcomes. “There’s a lot of innovation that can be done inside government if you provide the right leadership and the right culture”, Turnbull said.