Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes the Government's commitment to Medicare through the largest increase to Medicare rebates in thirty years and a tripling of the bulk billing incentive;

(2) acknowledges the Government's commitment to making it easier to see a doctor, making medicines cheaper, and strengthening Medicare after nine years of cuts, neglect and rorts; and

(3) calls on the Opposition to support the Government's policy to halve the cost of medicine for over six million Australians.

I'm delighted to take this opportunity to talk about the importance of our universal healthcare system through Medicare and what the Albanese Labor government is doing to strengthen and expand it. Before entering this place I worked in the health sector. One of the key things I learnt through that experience was the importance of early intervention and preventative health.

Cost is a significant barrier for people being able to access health care appropriately. I'm pleased to say that this principle of affordable health care is core to the way this government is strengthening Medicare. In the May budget we announced that we are tripling the bulk-billing incentive for regular appointments. This is the largest-ever increase in the incentive, meaning more Australians will be able to see a bulk-billing GP. We know how hard it is to get in to see a GP, let alone a bulk-billing one, so we are incentivising more GPs for more sessions to be bulk-billed.

GPs told me they want to keep bulk-billing because they know it is important for their patients to be able to see them in a timely manner. Under the previous government, former health minister Peter Dutton tried to introduce a co-payment and permanently eliminate bulk-billing in 2014. When that didn't work they turned around and froze Medicare rates for over six years. While the Medicare rate was frozen, certainly the cost of providing surgery wasn't. The number of GPs bulk-billing dropped significantly, but now we are acting to turn that around. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has called this massive investment 'a game changer' for general practice in Australia and one that is certainly needed.

Of course this isn't all we are doing to improve Medicare. This government knows that the cost-of-living pressures can and do have a very real impact on people's ability to access health care. That's why on 1 January we reduced the price paid for PBS prescriptions by $12.50 a script. The maximum you'll be out of pocket for scripts has been cut from $42.50 to $30. This means that, for the first time in the 75-year history of the PBS, the co-payment for general scripts has fallen. This measure alone has saved people in Boothby more than $900,000 on more than 93,000 prescriptions since 1 January this year.

Starting on 1 September, and in three tranches, over 300 PBS listed medications will be available for 60-day dispensing at your local pharmacy. This will save on trips to the chemist and cut out-of-pocket expenses for consumers. It also means patients won't need to go back to their GP so often just to get a prescription renewal, freeing up GPs to see other patients. As we've seen from other countries that have longer dispensing, in some instances up to two decades worth—sorry, two decades of long prescriptions, not two decades per prescription—it will lead to better compliance with taking medications, which leads to better health outcomes.

This change means patients living with a chronic stable condition will be able to buy two months worth of these medicines for the price of a single prescription, rather than the current 30-day supply. People with a Medicare card who are prescribed the relevant medications will save up to $180 every year per medicine, and concession card holders will save $43.80 a year for each eligible medicine. Longer prescriptions will halve the cost of medicines for over six million Australians, many of them older Australians, and it will also free up GP time. I would encourage those opposite to back this important reform to our health system.

Finally, in my electorate of Boothby we're getting on with the once-in-a-generation investment of $400 million to upgrade and expand Flinders Medical Centre in Bedford Park. The upgrade will equip Flinders to deliver high-quality services to southern Adelaide, decrease ramping and dramatically reduce pressure on the overall hospital network. I was delighted to be able to bring the Prime Minister and Premier Peter Malinauskas to Flinders earlier this year to announce the fast-tracking of 26 new acute inpatient beds at Flinders to ease the pressure on the hospital's emergency department. Later this year I hope to announce the site of the new urgent care clinic. Labor built Medicare and our universal health system, and Labor's the only party that can be trusted to deliver these kinds of major projects that make a real difference in Australians' lives.

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