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

I rise today to speak in support of the Health Legislation Amendment (Prescribing of Pharmaceutical Benefits) Bill 2025, a reform that goes to the heart of access, efficiency and fairness in our healthcare system. Nurses and midwives play a vital role in Australia's healthcare system. Across the country, there are more than 54,000 enrolled nurses, 345,000 registered nurses and more than 2½ thousand nurse practitioners employed. There are also more than 300,000 midwives providing vital care for more than 300,000 women each and every year. Nurses alleviate suffering and support recovery. They foster life from the start and uphold dignity at the end of life. They are highly skilled and educated. However, they are currently underutilised in primary care. This bill changes that.

It delivers upon Labor's commitment to support more Australians and their health by enabling designated registered nurses to prescribe. I know many in my electorate of Bonner will benefit from this change with better access for affordable medicines when they need it most. GPs are managing rising demand, as we know, and emergency departments are overcrowded. We know that too many Australians are waiting longer than they should for the care and medicines that they need. In many cases, those delays are not caused by any lack of clinical skill but by outdated restrictions on who can be authorised to prescribe.

This bill amends the National Health Act 1953 to allow a registered nurse endorsed against the registration standard to be an authorised prescriber and to enable them to prescribe certain medications that can be supplied under the PBS and attract the Commonwealth subsidy. The bill also amends the Health Insurance Act 1973 to include registered nurses to enable review of the provision of their prescribing services by the Professional Services Review Scheme. Amendments to the National Health Act 1953 will enable prescriptions written by designated registered nurse prescribers to be subsidised under the PBS. Prescribing registered nurses will be subject to the Professional Services Review Scheme, a peer review mechanism that safeguards the PBS and other programs.

The change will reduce the need for GP visits or long waits at hospital emergency departments, due to nurses being empowered to provide safe, high-quality care directly to Australians. This builds upon national progress as well. In December 2024, Australia's health ministers approved the new registration standard that allows suitably qualified registered nurses to become designated nurse prescribers. The legislation will enable nurse prescribers to prescribe PBS subsidised medication in primary, aged, disability and mental healthcare settings, including the acute hospital setting to support the discharge process and outpatient management.

The Albanese Labor government has listened to the experts and is acting on their advice. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and chief nursing and midwifery officers conducted extensive research and consultation on nurse prescribing models. Through many rounds of consultation, the board developed the standards for designated registered nurse prescribers. Subsequently, all health ministers endorsed the scheduled medicine standards in 2024. This bill reflects expert advice. It reflects workplace planning and it reflects a modern health system adapting to modern needs.

Nurses are essential across all health settings, from hospitals and aged care to primary care and remote areas. They are the largest clinical workforce in the country. They are crucial to ensuring every Australian can get the health care they need when they need it. That is why Labor is building the health workforce. This includes delivering $10.5 million for 400 scholarships for nurses and midwives to extend their skills. The scholarships will increase the number of qualified nurse practitioners to support nurse led clinics and increase the number of endorsed midwives. Labor is also fast-tracking registration for record numbers of nurses from comparable countries to join Australia's workforce.

To back the health workforce, we need to recognise the expertise of our nurses. That is why the Albanese Labor government delivered a $2.6 billion pay rise for nurses in aged care. Registered and enrolled nurses have seen their award wage increase by an average of around 12 per cent. These increases have been provided across three instalments, with the final instalment coming into play this year in August.

Under a decade of neglect from those opposite, aged-care workers were underpaid and undervalued. I'm proud to be part of a government that is righting that wrong. Registered nurses working in aged care on an award wage are around $430 a week better off, and enrolled nurses are $370 a week better off, under the Albanese Labor government. This will also boost recruitment and retention of nurses, easing the pressure on the existing nurse workforce.

The Albanese Labor government has made health a priority. These reforms are alongside policies to make health care more accessible and affordable for a growing population. We all know that the costs of seeing a doctor or filling a script are placing many families under financial pressure. Bonner families shouldn't have to make a choice between their health, groceries or paying a bill. That is why Labor has made medicines cheaper. From 1 January this year, we have seen the cost of PBS medications drop to just $25 per script. In Bonner alone, families have saved more than $14.2 million across more than two million scripts.

Since coming into government, the Albanese Labor government has also added over 300 new and amended listings to the PBS scheme. For example, 300,000 women will save up $400 a year in Medicare rebates for IUDs, and 365,000 women have already accessed 715,000 cheaper scripts for contraceptives and menopausal hormone therapies through changes to the PBS. Now, authorised nurses can prescribe medications. New PBS listings are saving families potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in treatment costs for rare and complex diseases as well as other very rare and complex health conditions. Australian families are relying on medications being listed on the PBS so they can make ends meet. That is exactly what we are doing.

We know that seeing a doctor has become a challenge when it shouldn't be. That is why the Albanese Labor government has tripled the bulk-billing incentive. This is the single biggest in Medicare's history. It means more Australians are seeing the doctor for free and fewer families are putting off the care that they need. Over the next four years, 4,800 clinics across the nation are expected to convert to fully bulk-billed practices, and it's already started in Bonner. In our electorate, we now have around a third of our practices bulk-billing, including: Doctors on Manly Road; Yulu-Burri-Ba in Wynnum; Archer Medical Centre in upper Mount Gravatt; 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 in upper Mount Gravatt; and Tingalpa Family Health Care Centre, and there will be more on the way. These clinics help more families see the doctor, and it won't cost them a cent. All they need is their Medicare card, not their credit card.

Nurses are also playing a crucial role in our urgent care clinics. Our community called for an urgent care clinic, and I'm thrilled that in the last couple of months we've opened not one but two urgent care clinics. Carina-Carindale and the Capalaba urgent care clinics are now open. They are providing urgent care for many in Bonner with no out-of-pocket costs every day of the year. Already 1,121 locals have been treated at the Carina-Carindale clinic. The Capalaba clinic alone has reported an average of 40 people walking in each and every day. Over 2.1 million patients have walked through the door of a Medicare urgent care clinic in Australia, and that includes 360,000 Queenslanders who have received free, urgent, non-life-threatening care through these clinics, seven days a week, close to home.

With cheaper medicines, bulk-billed GP clinics and urgent care clinics, families in my community of Bonner can get the health care they need when they need it. Now, nurses will play a greater role in supporting families accessing the treatment they need. In Bonner, I know many people are in the healthcare and aged-care sector as well. In Bonner, 8.7 per cent of the working population are in the healthcare and social assistance sector. There are 3½ thousand people in Bonner completing a health related VET course, and there is a nurse led clinic in Mount Gravatt within my electorate. I know these reforms will support more opportunities for our nurses. Importantly, it will enable my community to seek treatment they need faster.

Allowing nurses to prescribe under the PBS will ensure the health system is responsive and better coordinated and ensure GPs and nurse practitioners can focus on patients with more complex needs. The bill is about making better use of the skills we already have in our health workforce. It is about improving access to medicines and ensuring that Australians can receive the care they need when they need it without any unnecessary delay. The Albanese Labor government is committed to supporting our nurses and values the work that they do. I commend the bill to the House.

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