Kara Cook (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love holding mobile offices in my electorate of Bonner. I recently met with Garry at my mobile office at Mount Gravatt Westfield, in my electorate. Garry had lots of things he wanted to talk about, but at the top of his mind was health care. Bulk-billing, cost of medication—these are the things that people in my community of Bonner care about. We made time to chat some more just last week, and, when I caught up with Garry, I talked to him about the fact that, from 1 November this year, every Australian is eligible for bulk-billing under Labor; around 1,000 GP practices have already indicated that they will become 100 per cent bulk-billing, which is on top of the 1,600 that are already bulk-billing right across our country.

I was able to let him know that, in Queensland alone, bulk-billing has increased by 1.2 million additional visits under Labor and that we take a different approach to that of those opposite. That means more doctors, more bulk-billing and more urgent care clinics. That is our approach to strengthening Medicare. I told Garry that no Australian should ever have to choose between buying groceries and seeing a doctor and that the phrase 'I can't afford to see a doctor' is something that should never be spoken in a country like ours. Labor has tripled the bulk-billing incentive, the single biggest investment in Medicare's history. That means more Australians seeing a doctor for free and fewer families putting off the care that they need.

Over the next four years, 4,800 clinics across the nation are expected to convert to be fully bulk-billing practices, and it's already started in my electorate of Bonner. In my electorate, we now have 11 fully bulk-billing GP clinics; that's doubled. These include Archer Medical Centre; Doctors On Manly Road; Garden City Family Doctors; Good Health medical centres in Garden City, Mount Gravatt and Carindale; Mansfield Family Practice; Mount Gravatt Family Practice; Realcare Medical Centre; Tingalpa Family Health Care Centre; and Yulu-Burri-Ba. These clinics are delivering real relief for households and real confidence that, when you're sick, you can see a GP for free.

Tripling the bulk-billing incentive goes hand in hand with cheaper medicines. In Bonner alone, families have saved more than $12.8 million across two million scripts. In just over one month, more savings are on the way. From 1 January we will see the cost of PBS medications drop to $25 per script. During the election this year, my community made it very clear that they wanted to see a Medicare urgent clinic in our community. Labor has already opened 90 Medicare urgent care clinics across the country, and there are 47 more on the way. I am so excited that in the coming months we will see one of those 47 right in my electorate of Bonner. The new Karridale Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is on the way. We know that over 2.1 million patients have walked through the door of a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic right across Australia, and that includes 360,000 Queenslanders who have now received free, urgent care for non-life-threatening conditions through these clinics seven days per week and close to home. The Karridale clinic will cut out-of-pocket costs, and I cannot wait to cut that ribbon in the coming months.

No Australian should be punished for their gender when accessing health care but we know that women still pay more, wait longer, and their concerns are too often dismissed. Last year, the Medical Journal of Australia reported that 9.4 per cent of women delayed or did not fulfil a script because of cost compared with 5.5 per cent of men. Labor's $800 million women's health package is changing that. Some 300,000 more women will save $400 a year in Medicare rebates on IUDs, and 365,000 women have already accessed 715,000 cheaper scripts for contraceptives and menopausal hormone therapies through changes to the PBS. This is one of the largest health investments by any government, because women's health must be a priority and healthcare gender bias must be eliminated.

Labor are delivering and will keep delivering because we know that all you should need is your Medicare card, not your credit card, to get free health care in this country.

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