Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Hansard source

Australians are being told that they've never had it better than they have under this government, but families know the truth every time they tap their card at the doctor's reception desk. Out-of-pocket GP costs are now pushing, on average, $50. That is a worrying statistic. That is a barrier to care. When the coalition left office, bulk-billing rates were nearly 90 per cent. Today, bulk-billing is collapsing in 32 electorates. The Prime Minister's famous promise, 'You'll only need your Medicare card, not your credit card,' is now nothing more than a punchline in doctors' waiting rooms. Throughout Australia, people are handing over their credit cards every time they visit a doctor, and many simply can't afford that anymore.

In my electorate of Dawson, what used to be a routine GP visit is now a financial decision. We have no fully bulk-billed GP clinics in Mackay, a city of around 130,000 people. None! The government says bulk-billing will reach nine out of 10 visits by 2030, but in Dawson this promise is a mile from reality. That is not strengthening Medicare; that is slow disintegration of it, and GP practices are sounding the alarm as loudly as their patients. They tell me the same story. They simply can't keep bulk-billing when costs just keep going up. To quote Family Health Care Mackay Rural View:

… the incentive does not cover the full cost of providing high-quality care. Therefore, our clinic will continue to charge an appropriate out-of-pocket fee for some consultations to ensure we can keep delivering high-quality care to our community.

Power bills have climbed. Commercial rent is climbing. Insurance costs are climbing. Everything is going up and the Medicare rebates aren't keeping up with 'Jimflation'. This is not economic management. This is a cost-of-living crisis delivered through the front door of every medical practice in regional Australia.

You cannot blame the doctors for walking away from bulk-billing when the numbers no longer stack up. Only 13 per cent of metropolitan GP clinics have signed up to Labor's bulk-billing program. If the program can't survive in Melbourne and Sydney, what hope do Mackay, Bowen and Burdekin have? Does this government really think 2030 is an acceptable target?

Tell that to the mother in Airlie Beach, ignoring the back pain that she can't afford to have checked because nappies and formula come first. And that $100 gap in up-front costs could mean the difference between early detection and ovarian cancer going unnoticed. Or tell that to the father in Home Hill, chalking up his chronic fatigue to overtime hours working to put food on the table for his family, unaware he could be weeks away from cardiac arrest. Tell that to the apprentice tradie in Paget, who cannot afford more than $100 to see a doctor. A simple blood test might have caught prostate cancer early, but by the time the symptoms are severe, it's diagnosed as stage 4. We know early detection saves lives. This government's failure to fix Medicare is not just short-sighted but also putting lives at risk. This is the reality for too many Australians today: a shrinking Medicare promise, regional communities forced to delay care, and families waiting until illness becomes an emergency. For some, that delay will result in death. That is the cost of this government's failure. The reality is that families are paying more, waiting longer and getting less.

Medicare is not strengthened by token slogans. It is strengthened by access, and there is no access when the GP workforce is shrinking, when clinics can't afford to bulk-bill and when families must budget for something that should be universal. This government needs to stop treating health care like a talking point and start treating it like the lifeline it is, especially for regional Australia. Right now, under Labor, a Medicare card is little more than a discount voucher.

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