OPPOSITION leader Bill Shorten used his centre-left Labour Party’s official campaign launch on Sunday to cast July 2 general elections as a referendum on the future of Australia’s universal health care system.

A Labour government introduced government-funded Medicare in 1983 to provide free or subsidised health care for all Australian citizens and permanent residents. Labour argues the conservative coalition government plans to privatise 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, announced on Saturday that his government had scrapped plans to outsource the Medicare payments system to private enterprise. “Medicare will never ever be privatised,” Turnbull told reporters on Sunday.

All but one of Labour’s surviving prime ministers attended the launch: Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and Julia Gillard. Kevin Rudd, who was ousted by Gillard in an internal party showdown in 2010, then replaced her in a similar coup in 2013, was in Russia on business. Since Rudd was elected in 2007, there have been four changes of prime minister in an era of extraordinary volatility in Australian politics. Shorten was a powerbroker within the party who was instrumental in overthrowing both Rudd and Gillard.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2016