General Practitioner Payroll Tax

Mrs HURN (Schubert) (14:26): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Has the minister received any advice as to whether GP payroll tax changes will have any impact on bulk-billing rates in South Australia?

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (14:26): I thank the member for her question because, as I have been at pains to advise the house, the government has put an enormous amount of effort into assisting GPs through this issue. Without going through the full history of it, in brief I can say that members would recall that while we have had the same payroll tax legislation in this regard for nearly 15 years now here in South Australia, harmonised with most jurisdictions across the country—no change to the contract or provisions—it has only recently become apparent to GPs that some of them are not meeting their payroll tax obligations.

Unlike the approach of some other Eastern States, including New South Wales and Victoria, we have worked principally with the royal college representing GPs but also the Australian Medical Association representatives here in South Australia to assist GPs to firstly understand their obligations but also give them a long runway of time to come into compliance because the challenge here, of course, is that we already have some GP clinics who are paying payroll tax, and we also have many other clinicians who are registered for and are also paying payroll tax.

So we want to make sure that those GPs who may not be meeting their payroll tax obligations at the moment do in the future, and we want to give them a long period of time to come into that. From 1 July next year, we need to provide an appropriate framework to do that because if we didn't, if we said that this cohort of GPs did not have to pay payroll tax, that of course—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton is warned.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —would be inequitable to all of those GPs and all of those other medical clinicians who are already paying payroll tax.

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton is warned.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: The obligation of any government, any responsible—

Mr Cowdrey: Are they paying it on contracted GPs?

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —party of government, is to be fair and equitable in how it administers the tax base.

The SPEAKER: Order! There is a point of order from the member for Morialta.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98: the question was fairly narrow, actually, in relation to any advice relating to the changes on bulk-billing rates.

The SPEAKER: I have the question. I will listen carefully.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am grateful for the intervention because the question was about bulk billing. The GPs' principal complaint in all of this is that for a long time, particularly over the last 10 years since bulk billing rates have effectively been frozen by the former Coalition government, those people opposite, who signed themselves up to the federal Liberal Party, dudded GPs out of pay increases. From today—from today—under a federal Labor government, bulk billing incentives have tripled—tripled—so the remuneration under the Medicare Benefits Schedule—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Colton, order!

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Oh, you don't want to talk about bulk billing now?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Okay, that's fine. No problem.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Members to my right, there is a point of order from the member for Morialta: 134.

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: Standing order 98: the question was specifically about the interaction between the government's GP payroll tax—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.A.W. GARDNER: —and bulk billing rates. The minister is talking about commonwealth changes to bulk billing; he is not talking about his GP payroll tax on bulk billing.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! There is a close relationship with commonwealth arrangements in relation to this matter. It could well fall within context.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I am very grateful to have a question from those opposite about federal Labor's changes to bulk billing, which will effectively take the payment for the federal bulk billing regime that they raised today in question time, the very day that the bulk billing incentive has tripled. The remuneration will go, for a bulk billing payment—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta! Member for Schubert!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —from approximately $40—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —to $60: a 50 per cent increase, because remember—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —those acolytes of the federal Coalition government, those supplicants to Christopher Pyne and James Stevens, those people who supported—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —a $7 co-payment for GPs for bulk billing—

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Member for Morialta!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —those people who supported a freeze in remuneration for 10 years, they don't want to talk about tripling the bulk billing incentive.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Treasurer—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Chaffey, order! Member for Morialta, you will have to depart under 137A, for persistent interjections, for the remainder of question time. It is perhaps no surprise to you.

The honourable member for Morialta having withdrawn from the chamber: