Prime Minister Tony Abbott has expressed his frustrations to world leaders at his inability to impose a $7 fee on GP visits and blamed voters who love free government programs for supporting wasteful spending.
In his opening address to world leaders gathered for the Leaders’ Retreat at Queensland’s State Parliament, Mr Abbott spruiked his successes at stopping asylum seekers travelling to Australia by boat and his repeal of carbon pricing.
The address was soon attacked by Labor leader Bill Shorten as “weird and graceless”.
In his televised speech, Mr Abbott also “thanked God” he had stopped the “illegal boats”, noted that the former Labor government’s carbon tax is “gone” and underlined his plan to build more roads.
The gathering included the presidents of the United States and China who have recently struck a landmark deal to reduce their carbon emissions beyond 2020. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo, who has previously warned he would not tolerate incursions into Indonesia’s waters by Australian navy vessels turning back boats, is also attending.
Mr Abbott described the gathering as comprising some of the most “powerful and influential” people in the world.
“Nowhere on earth will there be a more influential gathering than this,” he said and pointed out that they were meeting in the defunct Legislative Council of Queensland’s State Parliament.
“This room symbolises the limitations on our power,” Mr Abbott said. He called for leaders to speak from their “hearts” rather than “scripts” and for a maximum of five minutes each. He also urged the leaders to address each other by their first names to promote “personal warmth”.
Mr Abbott became most candid when discussing his domestic issues, notably two of the federal budget’s most contested measures – the proposed $7 fee to visit the doctor and the plan to uncap university fees.
The Senate is due to vote on the higher education changes before the end of the year but it is likely to be struck down. The government has not introduced any legislation for its GP fee but has not ruled out subverting the Parliament to introduce the co-payment.
Mr Abbott conceded his frustrations: “We all know what we would like to do, but we all know there are many constraints on what we can do.
“It doesn’t matter what spending program you look at, it doesn’t matter how wasteful that spending program might appear, there are always some people in the community who vote who love that program very much,” Mr Abbott said on Saturday.
“For a long time most Australians who went to see a doctor have been seen at no charge and we would like to see a $7 co-payment for people who are going to see the doctor.
“In most countries this is not unusual … but it is proving to be massively difficult to get this particular reform through the Parliament.
“So getting the budget under control has proven very difficult,” Mr Abbott said.
Mr Shorten said the address was at best “weird and graceless” but at worst a “disastrous missed opportunity for Australia”.
“This was Tony Abbott’s moment in front of the most important and influential leaders in the world and he’s whingeing that Australians don’t want his GP tax,” he said.
Mr Shorten said Mr Abbott had had “months to prepare for this moment” but failed dismally.
“He boasted of taking Australia backwards on climate change action, making it harder for Australians to go to university and pricing sick people out of getting the healthcare they need,” Mr Shorten said.
Source: The Age