Rowan Holzberger (Forde, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the motion this morning. My neighbour the member for Bowman is actually the mover of this motion, and it just proves the old adage that you can choose your friends but you can't choose your neighbours, because I feel as if I would like to offer a little bit of political advice. Maybe they're better off not talking about this issue. Maybe there needs to be a little bit of self-reflection here, because when it comes to the reason people are finding it difficult to access health care today, it is because of the policies that they presided over for more than nine years. The member for Bowman mentioned a woman who has to come deep into Logan to access a bulk-billing doctor. Perhaps that's because in Logan, on the northern Gold Coast, we managed to increase the number of bulk-billing clinics overnight from nine to 20. That's more than double, and that number has only gone up. That was overnight, between Friday night and Saturday morning. Now we have gone up to at least 21, and that number is going to continue to rise. So I would suggest the member for Bowman direct more people to Logan because that's where they are going to find it. He won't need to, because that's not the only place this constituent of his is going to be able to find a bulk-billing doctor; that number is going to continue to rise in his electorate as well.

The opposition whip mentioned that we have been in power for 3½ years and it's time that we took responsibility. We are taking responsibility for the solution—if they won't take responsibility for the problem. When I was campaigning in 2021 for the seat of Forde—unsuccessfully, mind you—and in 2022 we all noticed that bulk-billing was beginning to ebb. You could see that one clinic had decided to stop bulk-billing, and then another clinic. You got the sense that this was the beginning of a landslide, which did happen. Unfortunately, as we came to government that landslide came crashing down, and while it came crashing down as a result of the policies of the former government, thanks to the practical incentives for kids and pensioners, we have now begun to turn things around. In Queensland, for instance, as a result of those incentives, we have gone from a bulk-billing rate of 73.6 to 77 per cent. After 3½ years we are taking responsibility and we are turning it around.

The member for Casey made the misleading claim that Albo heartlessly cut, from 20 to 10, the number of mental health appointments for which you could access assistance, but I think the point needs to be made that the 20 visits was a temporary measure due to COVID, just like the bulk-billing rate was artificially high due to COVID, as people got their vaccinations. That underlines the point that the collapse was even greater, because that number was kept artificially high as people sought vaccinations. The real problem was masked by that fact.

We're talking about mental health, and, in Forde, we've not only invested in the Medicare mental health clinic in Logan but also upgraded it since the last election, and we'll be opening up a new one on the northern Gold Coast. In terms of responding to what the member for Cook had to say, unfortunately there wasn't anything I could find that merited responding to. I'd underline the fact that this is a problem 10 years in the making, and it's turning around.

I visited the Holmview clinic and the Bannockburn clinic, and there are a list of other clinics that want to get me out there, as the local member, because we have, in the words of one clinic, saved bulk-billing. One clinic had bulk-billed for 10 years, and it was going to stop bulk-billing, and, had these new incentive payments not come in, it wouldn't have been able to continue bulk-billing.

Only Labor has Medicare at its heart. Only Labor protects Medicare. While Peter Dutton was voted the worst health minister in history, perhaps those people voted too early, because there's one health minister that has the dubious record of having never approved an increase, and that's the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)

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