Regional Victorians can breathe easy after five years of advocacy and the Victorian Liberal-National Opposition’s criticisms embarrassed the State Government into pausing its $10 million doctor tax, the Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health, Dr Anne Webster, said at the weekend.

“Victorian Labor has backflipped on a tax grab which undermined the Federal Government’s tripled bulk billing incentive, a view the Health Minister had shared, as I had warned in February,” she said.

“Worse still, the Government had proposed the tax would apply retrospectively. The extra income doctors would have received through the incentive to bulk bill would have come in from the Federal door and gone straight out the door and into the State Government’s coffers.”

Fee Rise

The tripled bulk billing incentive raised the consultation fee to $30.15 in regional centres (Modified Monash Model area 2, such as Bendigo and Ballarat), $31.95 in largemedium rural towns (a grouping including Horsham, Maryborough, Mildura, Stawell and Swan Hill), and $34.05 in small rural towns (e.g. Edenhope, Warracknabeal and Wycheproof).

Bulk billing is down 11 per cent under the Federal Government, and GPs in regional Victoria had warned patient fees would need to go up by as much as $15 per consultation if the Victorian payroll taxes proceeded.

New South Wales and Queensland granted similar payroll tax exemptions last year, with South Australia expected to follow suit. Victorian doctors had threatened legal action against the tax and warned they may have to close their practices.

“During the dual crises of a dire regional health workforce shortage and cost of living hurting Australians, the Coalition Opposition at State and Federal levels have dragged Labor kicking and screaming to a sensible outcome,” said Dr Webster.

“Labor is proving unfit to govern for all Victorians and a change of government at state and federal levels cannot come soon enough.”

The precise fate of the doctor tax will be decided in State Parliament in the second half of this year. It is unclear from media reports today whether this backflip will apply for just one year, or permanently.

This article appeared in  The Buloke Times, 28 May 2024.