14. Concluding Remarks and an Invitation

Sometimes it is forgotten how radical universal health care was considered when Prime Minister Gough Whitlam introduced it in 1975. Now taken as a crucial pillar of Australian social security, Medibank, as it was then called, suffered prolonged and passionate opposition (which continues today in some segments of society). In fact, even after it was legislated in parliament, universal health care suffered rollbacks during the Fraser years, only to be reinstated again under Hawke in the 1980s. Most of us now know that our lives have been improved profoundly by having such a universal scheme, to the extent that any perceived efforts to undermine it almost instantly generate a community pushback (as happened during the 2016 federal election and the so-called Mediscare campaign).