Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I understand the reluctance to second this congratulatory motion! The member for Banks just accused me of not listening. I listened intently to his five-minute dissertation. What I heard, what I'm sure people in the gallery heard and what the people of Australia heard is: 'Australians have never had it better.' If you believe that, you're talking to a different subset of Australians than me. Electricity prices are through the roof. I want to talk about Medicare, because in my community it's a real issue right now. But the member opposite also talked about a future made in Australia, and those of us on this side, he suggests, want to talk down manufacturing. We want to talk it up; it's those on the other side who want to close down Australian manufacturing. If you don't believe that, go and talk to any smelter in Australia right now. Tomago might be the place where you'd start, but it's not the place where you'd finish.

I'm not here to address the member for Banks's comments, enthusiastic as he is to talk up the progress of the Albanese Labor government over the last six months. But I want to address the first point he makes—the government delivering, he says, on their election commitments. The first proof point he points to is Strengthening Medicare. I want to take him on a journey to my electorate. South-east South Australia contains the second-largest city in South Australia, my hometown of Mount Gambier. On 3 May 2025, Mount Gambier had an urgent care clinic. That urgent care clinic—that Medicare urgent care clinic—was closed in June. Closed. It never met its obligatory opening hours, those extended hours that never were, but it literally closed in June. Over the six months, if that had occurred, you'd think that it would have reopened, given the government proudly claims it has strengthened Medicare over the course of the last six months. I'm here to tell the member for Banks and all those opposite that it remains closed. Closed!

Thankfully those opposite have been able to—in the five months since it has closed and the six months that they've been in government—issue a new tender for the urgent care clinic in Mount Gambier, but I'm told on the grapevine, quietly, despite the fact that the minister issued a press release celebrating the tender, the facility won't be open until next year. We are at about 200 days right now that that facility has been closed. The weeds are up to my waist. I offered to go with my whipper snipper and tidy it up, but the offer wasn't accepted. There have been 200 days to this point, but it will be something more like seven months before that facility reopens.

That would be bad enough, but right now in South Australia's second-largest city, the state that the minister relevant to this portfolio hails from, every single GP clinic in that community has issued a public statement that they're not able to accept any new patients. I had a constituent contact me recently who is a patient of a particular clinic, but, because his doctor has retired, he's no longer able to return to the clinic. Do I blame the clinics? Absolutely not. Do I put a call out to people living in that community to show respect to frontline staff at those clinics who are often subjected to rather terse conversations when they have to inform a person living in that community: 'Sorry, you can't see a doctor. You won't be able to see a GP; you'll have to drive 100 kilometres that way or 50 kilometres that way, or, better still, travel to Adelaide.' Do I put that call out? I do.

I'll tell you who I apportion the blame to: Minister Butler.

The member for Banks scoffs, but hear me out. One of his first actions as a minister, in 2022, was to change the distribution priority areas, meaning that a doctor who was obligated to work in an area of need, like Mount Gambier in my electorate, was no longer required to practice in Mount Gambier—they could practice in Adelaide. The member opposite scoffs, but I can tell you that on that day I received two phone calls, from the two largest clinics in Mount Gambier. Do you know what those phone calls said? 'Tony, we've just had a number of doctors resign en masse and we won't be able to service the people of Mount Gambier.' He's to blame. (Time expired)

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