Again, in the opposition's questions in question time today and in their response in the debate now, we see just a political agenda but, somewhat surprisingly, as we go into an election, no policy at all. From Medicare and housing to antisemitism, they're quick on the attack, but that is accompanied by selective hearing and selective facts.
Let's turn first to housing. The last government absolutely abandoned social housing and any kind of national housing initiative through the Commonwealth. The opposition, when in government, turned its back on remote Indigenous communities in areas of dire housing need—communities where the Commonwealth had had a long history of sharing the load of building and maintaining houses—and I believe a Dutton government would do exactly the same.
Equally, under the Rudd government we saw a massive uplift in social housing. Places like St Pats, which I've been pleased to visit, that house people at otherwise extreme risk of homelessness were funded during that period. Now, through the Housing Australia Future Fund, we have a substantial agenda to deliver hundreds of thousands more houses for our nation.
On the question of Medicare, what a joke it was to hear that critique from those opposite. When the opposition say, 'The facts don't lie,' they have pretty selective facts, let me tell you. When the opposition say bulk-billing has fallen by 11 per cent, they're actually comparing it to all of the bulk-billed injections done by the Commonwealth government during COVID, where people walked through the door and got their jab. That's what they have counted as '100 per cent bulk-billed'. Today's bulk-billing rates are actually pretty close to what they were under the last government, but we don't think that's good enough. We want to see that lifted, which is why we are investing in the bulk-billing incentive. It's why we have opened 87 Medicare urgent care clinics that are demonstrably diverting patients away from busy hospitals and emergency departments.
Finally, I come to the topic that Senator Cash started with in question time today, trying to score political points off these appalling antisemitic comments taking place in a hospital in Bankstown, New South Wales. I looked up this particular incident on the internet, and it is, indeed, appalling. The holding of such views, as Senator Wong pointed out, is a contravention of federal law under Ahpra, which is the accreditation and standards body that coordinates health bodies. I daresay those comments will also be an offence under the hate speech laws that we have just passed. But, rather than focusing on what was being done to hold these workers to account and to stop it from happening in the future, Senator Cash wanted to invent some kind of idea that the Prime Minister should have done something other than what he did. Did Senator Cash want the Prime Minister to march into the hospital and sack them himself?
