Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

And a newsagent, yes. Thank you, Member for Boothby. Instead of coming into this place and somehow or other pretending that a government that in its first 12 months has done more to reduce the cost of going to the doctor and the cost of accessing pharmaceuticals than the last 10 years of multiple Liberal-National party governments—maybe, if the member for Fisher actually properly engaged with the needs of his electorate, they wouldn't be in the situation that they are in.

In my community of Dunkley we have a priority primary care centre. We have an urgent care clinic that was started by the state government and is now 100 per cent funded by the federal government, as we promised we would do before the election. There's one in Dandenong. There's one in Frankston, which is my electorate. There's one in Prahran and there's one in Narre Warren. Already since the federal government has taken over funding or established those clinics, they have collectively treated over 20,000 people, according to the South Eastern Melbourne Primary Health Network. Every day, I am getting feedback from locals from Dunkley who needed to access a GP after hours and now, instead of having to wait hours and hours at the admittedly excellent Frankston Hospital emergency room, serviced by excellent practitioners, people in Dunkley can go to the priority primary care centre and get help for the sprains, the head knocks and the stomach bugs when they need it, and they can be bulk-billed.

When members of the coalition such as the member for Fisher doubt the commitment of people on this side of the chamber to Medicare and pharmaceuticals, which is how he opened his contribution, I just say: be very careful what you say. We have a caucus over here with people who have served their communities as doctors, as nurses and as nurse practitioners. We have a community of people in this caucus who understand what it's like to have to go and get a script filled every 30 days, who understand that the difference between $30 for a prescription and $42 or $43 for a prescription, when you have to get five or six prescriptions at the same time, is a massive cost-of-living measure, is a massive health measure. We represent communities where people don't take medicine that they need, because they can't afford it. The changes to the cost of medicine introduced in January, the changes to the bulk-billing incentive freeze, the changes which will mean that not only can people pick up their prescriptions every 60 days but they can go to the doctor less and pick up the prescription for half the price are good for consumers, and consumers of the health system are by definition people in need.

Pharmacists will survive. Doctors will do better. But do you know who will absolutely be better off? People with not very much money who are vulnerable and in need. They're the ones we're here to protect.

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