Aussie poll eyes health care
Print Edition
OPPOSITION leader Bill Shorten used his center-left Labor Party’s official campaign launch yesterday to cast July 2 general elections as a referendum on the future of Australia’s universal health care system.
A Labor government introduced government-funded Medicare in 1983 to provide free or subsidized health care for all Australian citizens and permanent residents. Labor argues the conservative coalition government plans to privatize Medicare — a claim Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull denies.
“If you want to know why this election will make a difference to you, your family, your street, your workplace, to Australia’s future, I can give you the answer of why politics matters in one word: Medicare,” Shorten told a Sydney auditorium in front of the slogan: “We’ll put people first.”
The government has been quick to assure the public that the popular heath care system is not under threat.
Turnbull, who will officially launch his conservative Liberal Party’s campaign next weekend, said on Saturday that his government had scrapped plans to outsource the Medicare payments system to private enterprise.
“Medicare will never ever be privatized,” Turnbull said yesterday. “What Bill Shorten is doing is peddling an extraordinary lie so audacious ... it defies belief.”
Six weeks after the election was called, Shorten launched his campaign in western Sydney where Labor hopes to win several seats from the government.
An opinion poll based on a nationwide telephone survey of 1,437 voters from Tuesday to Thursday published by Fairfax Media on Saturday showed Labor had 51 percent support from respondents versus 49 percent for the government.
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